Robert Hall’s lawyer asked for the first-degree murder charge against Hall to be dropped Friday, arguing that prosecutors — who completed their case Friday after taking jurors to the scene of the March 2011 shooting — had not proved that Hall did anything criminal.

“The state is long on motive, long on opportunity, and long on impeachment ... (but) they are short on any substantive evidence,” defense attorney Rob Chastain said.

Fourth District Judge Michael McLaughlin disagreed, saying that prosecutors had provided jurors with substantial evidence, including the fact that Rob Hall’s DNA was found on the trigger of the handgun, and that it was up to the jury to decide if Hall was guilty.

That means Chastain will put on Hall’s defense Monday morning, starting with the opening statement he chose not to give at the beginning of the trial two weeks ago.

Hall is accused of shooting and killing Corrigan, his wife’s boss, in a Meridian parking lot because he suspected they were having an affair — a suspicion that turned out to be true.

Prosecutors took the jury to visit the Walgreens parking lot at Linder and McMillan roads where Emmett Corrigan was shot and killed March 11, 2011.

Hall told Meridian police in 2011 he wasn’t sure how Corrigan was shot and said his gun fell during a struggle with Corrigan, an attorney who hired his wife Kandi in the fall of 2010.

Chastain said he expects to put on expert witnesses who will testify about the effects of steroids the defense says Corrigan was taking when he was shot.

Another defense witness is expected to testify that Hall, who police say attempted to shoot himself, suffered “retrograde amnesia” from the gunshot wound to his head and does not remember what happened.

Chastain said he wasn’t sure yet if Rob Hall would testify on his own behalf.

Chastain estimated that the defense case would be done by Tuesday. Prosecutors say they will put on short rebuttal testimony, which means the jury could be deliberating by Wednesday.

What the jury of 10 women and five men (three will be alternates) will eventually have to decide is whether 42-year-old Hall shot and killed the 30-year-old Corrigan with premeditation and purpose that night.

Prosecutors declined to pursue the death penalty, so Hall faces up to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.

The jurors will be allowed to consider lesser offenses like second-degree murder and manslaughter if they don’t feel the evidence supports first-degree murder.

Patrick Orr: 377-6219, Twitter: @IDS_Orr