JURY DUTY

I did my civic duty, so y'all better appreciate it! After post-poning it for a year (due to having a freshly newborn baby last year), I reported for jury duty on Monday 2 weeks ago. I naively went in thinking that I would be there until lunchtime and then would be dismissed to go home and play with my mom for a week.

NOPE - NO FUN FOR YOU!

In the words of Judge Chernoff (after I had pleaded with every valid excuse I had) "we would like you to serve as a juror with us, will you serve." Why didn't I yell NO WAY! ? It was a little intimidating as I was standing there at the judge's stand with an accomplished and senior judge, 3 attorneys, a court reporter, an accused murderer and 3 armed court guards staring me in the face in close proximity. Ok, FINE, I'll do it, but again, y'all better be appreciatin' it.

So, I was called to be a juror on a murder case, no less. When they told us earlier that morning, the 2 cases that were a possibility and one was a homicide, a sinking feeling in my stomach told me I wouldn't be leaving anytime soon and I was right.

I have had lots of people ask me about the details of the case and I couldn't talk about it when I most wanted to (during the trial) and now that it's over and a week past, I have no desire whatsoever to drum up the yucky details of it. Still, I know all you freaky CSI fans want to hear the gore, so I will tell you what it was like to decide if a man should be put in prison for the rest of his life for strangling a woman to death and leaving her body in the alley way behind his apartment.

Basically, it was like reading a novel. Each day, new details and information to the story were given in court and you were always left hanging at the end of the day with a lack of closure in the story. The next morning brought more details and evidence and then the same thing again - no closure. I thought there would be more closure by the end of the case, but there were some seriously wide open holes in the story left and it was really frustrating to have to decide if we had enough information to recreate new details or if we had to ignore even more of the ones we had.

Here's the gore: it was basically a crack party gone bad. A woman in her forties who had just come from her daughter and grandchildren's house, (previously just released from jail) went looking for a good time and found it at this little sad apartment building with a bunch of strangers. It was seriously a soap opera - you couldn't have written a more convoluded story. The new strangers invited her up for some crack smoking and she met a 50+ year old guy who was renting a room in one of the apartments - a basic stranger to the others as well. They exchanged phone numbers at the end of the night and he called her at 2:15 in the morning and she was never seen again until her body was found in the alley 4 days later. The reason it took 4 days for the body to turn up in the alley was because he left her in his bed in his room and only threw her out when his room-mate (who had been in a hospital since before the party for attempted suicide) came home from the hospital. The crime scene photos weren't pleasant, but of course having watched way too much tv, most of us were desensitized enough to be able to handle looking at them. We had the works from phone records to DNA evidence to boxes of bloody stuff. (no bloody glove, and the "knife" was missing!)

The trial only lasted 7 days (and I say ONLY as in comparison to some of the high-profile trials that take weeks and months.) It was short and sweet because the accused actually confessed to the murder on tape at the police station. The purpose of the trial wasn't to prove that he did it, it was to decide whether he had premeditated it and whether it was extremely atrocious enough to qualify for 1st degree murder and send him to jail forever. He also claimed self defense and said that the 118 pound 5'6" woman came after him with a knife. (Why would you get rid of the one piece of evidence that would set you free?! EVERYTHING else was in his room!) After about 5 hours of back and forth deliberation, we decided that it was NOT self defense and he was too "coked up" to have premeditated anything and also that (although atrocious to kill) the killing was not EXTEMELY atrocious. We could think of much worse ways to die and much more suffering that could have happened to a person. So we came to the conclusion that he would be guilty of 2nd degree murder which still allows for some of those same feelings, but not to the extreme degree that is 1st degree. He will be sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole at 15 years. He's already like 52 years old, so he'll be in jail for the better part of the rest of his life.

The judge said that if we were picked to be on the jury that it would be one of the greatest experiences of our lives and that at the end we would be glad we did it. I have to say, it was really interesting to see how the justice system works (it's really not like what you see on tv - but what is?) and it was also good to learn about new things. I know all sorts of things about crack and cocaine now! However, at the end, I don't know that I am glad I did it. It was extremely hard to leave my kids for that long and I do wish I had been able to see more of my mom and Emily. David even ended up giving some vacation time to the trial because the trial was still going when my family left. He stayed home with the kids until the trial was over.

I think that if you could sign up for jury duty and do it when it didn't disrupt your life so much (like when would that happen?!) that you really might enjoy it and be glad you did it...

At least I can say I helped put a criminal behind bars and gave a little peace to a family who has been suffering for over a year since their mother and grandmother was killed.