![]() Sykes has attempted to play up his folksiness, referring to himself as "just a country lawyer" more than six times during the trial. Paltrow's team specializes in medical malpractice suits, while Sanderson's lead counsel, Bob Sykes, is known in Salt Lake City for his work suing police departments. Unlike the high-powered Hollywood attorneys that become household names at celebrity trials, both sides are represented by local lawyers. The all-white jury is drawn from registered voters in Summit County, where the average home sold for $1.3 million last month and residents tend to be less religious than the rest of Utah, where the majority of the population belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The jury and local residents who've braved blizzards to get to the courthouse each day have nodded along as attorneys referenced local landmarks like The Montage Deer Valley, the slopeside luxury resort where Paltrow got a massage after the crash. The city annually hosts the Sundance Film Festival, where early in her career Paltrow would appear for the premieres of her movies, including 1998's "Sliding Doors," at a time when she was known primarily as an actor, not a celebrity wellness entrepreneur. Utah's Poshest Ski Town The proceedings have drawn the world's attention to Park City, Utah, the silver boomtown-turned posh ski resort where Paltrow and Sanderson crashed and the trial has been held. They've compared the spectacle to 'The White Lotus' - an HBO series that satirizes the petty grievances of rich, white vacationers - and, in a reflection of the courtroom theatrics and rapt public attention, likened Paltrow's defense to the Salem witch trials of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible." Photographs of Paltrow entering and exiting the courtroom - often shielding her face, perp-walk style, with a blue GP-initialed notebook - also have gone viral on social media. Viewers tuning into proceedings on CourtTV have seen Paltrow complain about losing a half-day of skiing after the crash and heard a radiologist testify that Sanderson could no longer enjoy wine tasting. Factory Of Memes Though the trial has tested the jury's endurance as its eight members have gradually sunk deeper into their chairs through hours of expert-witness testimony, it has titillated spectators worldwide, become late-night television fodder and fed the internet's insatiable appetite for memes. "I'm not into celebrity worship," Sanderson later rebutted. They've questioned witnesses about Sanderson's "obsession" with the case and homed in on an email subject line in which Sanderson wrote after the collision: "I'm famous." "To become famous, he will lie," one of Paltrow's attorneys said. Paltrow's defense team has called the highly publicized case an attempt to exploit her fame and suggested that she's vulnerable to unfair, frivolous lawsuits. The renderings reflect the financial investment Paltrow and her defense team are devoting to the case. ![]() ![]() They've said the accident caused Sanderson to grow distant from friends and family, and they called his ex-girlfriend to testify about how their relationship deteriorated because he "had no joy left in his life." To keep jurors engaged, Paltrow's team shared a series of advanced, high-resolution animations to accompany their witnesses' recollections. ![]() Sanderson's attorneys have questioned Paltrow about that day's $8,890 bill for private ski instructors for four children accompanying her, as well as her decision to leave the slope after the crash to get a massage. They introduced photos into evidence of Sanderson camel riding in Morocco, trekking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru, and taking a continent-wide loop through Europe with stops in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France and Belgium. Paltrow's legal team has attempted to represent Sanderson as an angry, aging man who continued to travel internationally after the collision. ![]()
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