Maybe to make (unsuccessfully) the scripted, ghoulish pantomime State Dept lawyers and Baraitser have been co-engaged in while sadistically torturing a journalist/publisher to death in a western capital bear some faint resemblance to a genuine legal process in a democratic society. As if they were considering the verdict and deliberating about what to do next. Or maybe it's just another way to enhance the torture by dangling the prospect of dropping the case in front of their dying victim for a couple of weeks before withdrawing it. These are some of the sickest motherf*ckers on the planet after all.