Testimony
Most jurors are present in the jury room by 10:45 or so. Among them are my 7th grade English teacher, and my cousin's college history professor. After a little waiting, something we would soon be very familiar with, we are taken into the court room. A stand-in judge is present, as Judge Devasto was away at a conference. He was an older guy who seemed pretty likeable to me. He took several minutes to explain to us what we were there to do and how we were to go about doing it. He made it very clear that we were only to consider as evidence testimony that came from the witness stand, and exhibits that were allowed into the court room. Nothing said by any of the lawyers was to be considered as fact or influence our decision. Another interesting point is that he said we were not allowed to do any investigation or inferencing on our own. He explained "investigation" as looking in the newspapers for information, or even looking up a word in a dictionary. I found this interesting, because it seems to me that under these guidelines, the ability of the lawyers to get the witnesses to state their answers in such a way that all jurors could understand, and to use words that we could all understand would be the main factor in winning or losing the case. After this was explained, the prosecutors and defense gave their opening arguments. The prosecution said that they would show that the defendant, one Christopher Smith, had been stalking Laura Razis (18) for 10 months, and had on or about the date of August 8, 2002, waited at the entrance of her subdivision until she passed him on her way to her grandmother's house, taking her 16 y/o brother home from band camp. He follows them to her grandmother's house, hops out of his car, displays a knife and says "I'm going to kill you, B****". The defense says that they do not have the evidence to prove this, and that the defendant was not even present when she actually pulled into her driveway. We are dismissed for lunch, and instructed to return at 1:30. I at mexican food at Don Pablo's across the street from the courthouse, and then walked through an art gallery.
Once we return from lunch, we hear the testimony of Laura Razis and her younger brother. We ran out of time before he could be cross-examined. However, from their testimony, we basically come to an understanding that Chris had been harrassing Laura for a period of months, that she had called the police on him several times in the past, that he was waiting in her subdivision on Aug 8, and that he did follow her to her house at high speed.
One interesting thing happened during Laura's questioning. The prosecutors made the point that she had been harrassed by Chris to the point that she moved to a gated community and had kept her new address and phone number secret from Chris and other people for her safety. The defense attorney, in his cross-examination, asked her where she was currently living. She looked at him as though he were crazy, then looked at the prosecutors and said "Do I have to answer this?". It was obvious that she was very frightened of the thought of Chris knowing where she currently lived.