I suspect this might not have happened on a lower profile case. While in principle the idea here is that the court weighs the facts and the judge makes sure tha

I suspect this might not have happened on a lower profile case. While in principle the idea here is that the court weighs the facts and the judge makes sure that it happens and ends up with a verdict, the reality is that with enough money it gets changed into some weird sports-gameshow hybrid where irrelevant bits of data are used to weasel out of responsibility. Perhaps one of the issues here is the (apparent?) amount of personal input a judge can have, so if a judge were to dislike the taste of tomatoes and they have to hear a case on ketchup, they might act differently than a judge that doesn't really care about tomato-taste either way. But since all of this (generally) revolves around humans, removing all wiggle room is problematic as well (since laws are not humans, but are rather static).