In your original post you straight up accused everyone of being incompetent when the most likely situation was that the Defendant simply wanted to have his day in court because he knew he'd be going to prison anyway and just wanted to mess around and see what would happen.

It's very likely that the prosecution and defense had a plea deal that fell through at the last minute when the Defendant unilaterally decided to go to trial, necessitating a trial that neither side had prepared for. It's basically what's been happening with Twitter for the past several months, and we don't all assume that the staff at Twitter is incompetent.

Don't assume incompetence about something you know nothing about.

He was there at this trial, and served on the jury. The entire affair is an abstraction to you. You can't high-horse this; it doesn't even make sense to.