First of all, sorry for being such a delinquent blogger. Things have been hectic around here. Jody got hit with a bout of food poisoning/stomach flu, I got a cold that I'm pretty sure is going to last the rest of the winter/pregnancy, and even Charlie is having issues. 'Tis the season for sickness, I suppose. Then this week, I had jury duty and actually got picked for a trial. Yup, I am two-for-two in being picked for jury duty. I'm really not sure why I get picked to be on juries, but I do. Even being the emotional, flighty pregnant lady didn't stop them from choosing me.
All in all, though, it wasn't too bad. The trial just ended today, so I am free to talk about it now. So here goes: This was a criminal trial at the Criminal Court on California, so the commute wasn't too bad. But serving on a criminal trial is tough. I served a few years ago on a civil trial in a wrongful death case, which was emotional and difficult because someone had died. But, finding someone guilty in a civil trial typically means that person has to pay a certain amount of money. In a criminal trial, a guilty verdict sends somone to prison--and for me that is a much bigger burden to bear.
The case we heard was against a man who had two prior felonies on his record and was allegedly caught carrying a gun (which is unlawful for a convicted felon). This charge would have been the defendent's third strike and they were going for a charge of "armed habitual criminal," which would have put the defendent back into prison. The case was seemingly simple at the beginning: three cops were doing routine patrol when they saw the defendent standing and talking outside an apartment building with two other people. The cops thought it looked suspicious so they pulled the car over, approached the apartment and said that they saw a gun in the defendent's hand. The defendent then supposedly ran into the apartment and dropped the gun in the garbage and the police arrested him.
The defendent then told a different story about how he was never outside, had never seen the gun before, was in the apartment that night, and was arrested for no apparent reason.
There were a lot of other details that I won't get into, but basically, the defendent's story made our jury doubt the prosecution's story. The prosecution didn't bring in any other witnesses besides the three officers, and showed us photos that actually hurt their case. The judge gave us our instructions, which were to determine if the prosecution delivered enough evidence against the defendent to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And our jury just found too much reasonable doubt in the case. In the end, we found the guy not guilty.
Even though it's a pain in the butt, being on jury is pretty interesting. You get to be a crucial part of the American justice system and you really feel like you've done your civic duty. Also, you are stuck with your fellow jurors for a quite a lot of time, which gives you a chance to get to know and understand people from all walks of life.
Although I feel pretty good about our jury's decision, I'm not sure any juror leaves the courtroom feeling 100% good or bad about a verdict. The thing is, you just never really know the true story and it does you no good to second guess yourself. I mean, who knows, maybe this guy really was guilty and we put a dangerous criminal back on the streets of Chicago. Or maybe we were right and he was not guilty and instead we gave this guy the chance he deserves to get his life turned around. I'd like to think it was the latter, but I suppose I'll never know.
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