Another underwhelming blog.... » civil service http://www.tsuasai.com Fri, 03 Sep 2010 06:24:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 The System http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/the-system/ http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/the-system/#comments Wed, 20 Nov 2002 04:32:28 +0000 forkmantis http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/the-system
The first thing we did was to take a secret vote of his innocense or guilt just to see where we stood. It was tied at 6 and 6. So we started talking. Immediately, we all agreed that Chris was guilty of a great many of things... but was he guilty of the specific charge they were accusing him of? Since Laura's brother was only able to corroborate that Chris had followed them to their house, and not that he got out of the car, or displayed a knife, or made a threat, then it all boiled down to one thing. Laura's credibility. She was the sole person making the claim. Could we believe her. Most of us wanted to. I actually do believe most of what she said. I was very dissappointed from the very beginning that I believed there to be a reasonable doubt in favor of Chris. We talked about it for some time, and took another secret vote, and it had turned 7-5 in favor of a not guilty verdict. We took an open vote on how many of us wanted to see Chris go to jail, and we all raised our hands. But if we followed the rules as they were explained to us, we could not vote on that line of reasoning. We had to vote based on wether or not it was reasonable to doubt that Chris had at that time displayed a knife as he had made the threat. Since Laura was the only one making this claim, we started talking more about her credibility. We did this by comparing her testimony to that of her brothers. Of course they had some minor disagreements, such as who got to the door of their house first, distance estimates and timing estimates, but we dismissed those differences as insignificant. We focused on what we percieved to be the material discrepencies. They did not agree on exactly where Chris had parked his car. This seemed only moderately important, but was more significant than some of the other factors we had dismissed. Next was the discrepency on when Chris had actually parked in their yard compared to them parking. She says it was simultaneous to when she pulled in, and he claims that they were out of their car and nearly in the house before Chris even pulled into their yard. And finally, the biggest discrepency was how many times the gun was fired. She claimed only one shot on her report the police that day, and in her testimony. She claimed that after having called 911, she put the gun in a drawer under the phone and did not touch it again until the police arrived. Her brother, in his statement to the police at the time, claimed only one shot. But in his testimony, he claimed two shots. To us, this indicated that either she, or he was not completely credible as a witness. We all seemed to think of him as the more credible of the two, so this discrepency really damaged her credibility to us all. We took another vote, open this time, and it was 8-4 in favor of not guilty. Some people still wanted to believe her. I challenged those who still were in favor of a guilty verdict to explain to me how it would be "unreasonable" for any of us to doubt her testimony in light of the discrepencies described above. This seemed to win a few more over. We were able to get to an 11-1 vote in favor of not guilty, and we talked with the last gentleman until he also agreed that a reasonable doubt existed. We sent a note to bailif Bailey that we had arrived at a verdict. Someone commented on the fact that we were about to have to walk in the room, looking both Chris and Laura in the eyes, while we rendered a verdict of not guilty. None of us wanted to. We felt that Chris was guilty of many things... just not the particular one he was being charged with at that moment. I hated to think of Laura's dissappointment with our verdict. I also hated to think of Chris sitting there feeling as though he had outwitted us.

I'd like to comment on the other jurors at this point. I was very pleased to be deliberating with the 11 other people I was with. Everyone was able to put their emotions aside and do the job we had to do according to the rules we were supposed to work within. If for any reason I am ever on trial, I hope I have a similar jury panel. We disagreed at the beginning, and calmly talked it out until we could all agree. Never was there a raised voice, or even a hint of rudeness. Everyone was respectful of the other persons, and above all, respectful of the seriousness of the situation.

So we enter the courtroom and render our verdict. Chris did not seem to gloat. No shouts of joy or high fives with his lawyer. He just kinda sat there. I was not sitting where I could see Laura or her brother, so I do not know what their reaction was. I'm glad I could not see.

As soon as we returned to the jury room from the court room, the bailiff told us "I don't mean to make you feel bad... but this guy is a bad guy. Last year he had a capital murder charge against him dismissed for lack of evidence. He's previously been charged with sexual assault, and is currently on probation." My stomach sank. Then the lawyers came by as well to comment to us. The prosecuters said that they knew we did what we had to do, and basically apologized for not having a better case against Chris. They left, and the defense attorney stepped in the room. He almost immediately apologized for the way things were, and was obviously also dissappointed to know that Chris was a free man. He told us that he was court appointed, and was glad not to have to see Chris again. I had a glimmer of understanding at that moment. Even though we all knew Chris was guilty of SOMETHING, we had to follow the rules of the court and return a verdict of not guilty becuase that's what the law, as explained to us, said to do. In the same way, the court appointed this man to defend Chris, which he did to the best of his ability. I don't know how I could do that... but I guess somebody has to. We told him that we all wanted to give a guilty verdict, and would have done so if we had been able. He told us that Chris had said that if he was not found guilty, he was going to join the military to remove himself from this area and from any temptation of hassling Laura any further. Then the defense attorney promised us two things. First, he promised that he would convey to Chris that we all wished to send him to jail... and that we had given him the not guilty verdict very grudgingly. And he also said that he would personally escort Chris to a recruiters office tomorrow during time he had already set aside for Chris's punishment phase of prosecution. He even said that any or all of us were welcome to call his office to know the outcome of that.

Final thoughts:
So I have to go to sleep tonight and be happy with myself. Did we do the right thing? I think we did. I don't feel good about it. I felt sick to my stomach when Bailif Bailey had told us what he knew of Chris. But even knowing that, I still have reasonable doubts about Laura's version of the story. I don't like that we were forced into the position of making that decision. I feel like the prosecutors should have went for a different charge, or have put their case together better. I would have found Laura more credible had her brother not testified. But because they chose the charge they chose, and because Laura's brother cast doubt on some of the things she had said, I personally felt that it was reasonable to doubt her story. I hope never to hear that anything has happened to her at the hand of Chris. I cannot tell you how horrible I would feel if that were to happen. If I read anything else about the two of them in the paper, I hope it is that she shot him for trespassing or breaking and entering. But, of course, my true preference would be that Chris gets his life straight somewhere other than East Texas, and that Laura is able to live in peace and never encounter this man again.

I also want to say at this point that I'm not upset with our system. I don't necesarily think it failed. We are human, and therefore we are going to make mistakes. In a court of law, only two outcomes exist for a mistake. Either a guilty person goes unpunished, or an innocent person does get punished. Of the two, I think that the former is the lesser of the two evils. In fact, I think the ultimate legal sin is to punish an innocent person. Therefore, our laws slant in favor of the person being accused. This increases the chance of a guy like me remaining free from undue punishment. If the cost for that freedom is that, on occasion, a criminal goes unpunished for one of his crimes... I think it's worth the price.]]> Laura's younger brother is cross-examined. Here we start to see disparity between Laura's story and that of her brother. She said that Chris had pulled in the driveway at just behind them, and had immediately gotten out, drawn a knife, and threatened to kill her. Laura's brother claims that Chris did not get into the driveway until they were nearly all the way in the front door of their house, and he claims not to know wether or not Chris ever got out of the car. He also never did see a knife or hear a threat. They agree that once in the house, Laura retrieves a pistol, and instructs her brother to get something for defense. He grabs a bat and returns to the living room. She says "No, go get the shotgun", which he does not do. She then claims to hear Chris coming up the steps to the house. Her brother never claims to have heard or seen this. She looks out the window in the front door, and sees Chris backing off of the porch to the front yard. She goes outside, gun at her side, instructing her brother to lock the door behind her. He says he does this, and then returns to the couch with the bat. Some short period of time later, a gunshot is heard. A short time after that, tires squeel in the driveway, as Chris leaves. She claims he was out of his car, with a knife (which she had supposedly seen on the way into the house before she got the gun). Her brother says that he never actually saw Chris out of his car. He claims to have sat on the couch through the whole event, and that he did not at any time look out of the window to see what was going on. After the shot is fired, Laura returns inside and calls 911. According to her, they instruct her to put the gun away. She claims that this is what she did, and that she did not touch it again until the police arrived. She claims that one shot was fired. Her brother, on the other hand, claims that she shot the gun twice. Once from the front porch, and once into the air in the back yard after she had called 911, because the hammer was cocked back, and she did not know of any other way to release the hammer without firing the weapon. He says that she then reloaded the weapon. She never mentioned any of this. The policeman who had arrived on the scene says that she claimed to have fired one shot, and that only one bullet in the gun had actually been fired when he examined it. Aside from Laura's brother's cross examination, we heard from 3 law enforcement agents that day. They corroborated that Laura had had ongoing problems with Chris, and that they believed her in claiming that he had been at her house on Aug 8, and that she had fired one round from her pistol. After all of this evidence, the judge restated the charge of aggravated assault. In order for us to find Chris guilty of this charge, we had to know, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he had, in fact, threatened her and that he had, in fact, been displaying a knife at the time of this threat. We were dismissed to deliberate.

The first thing we did was to take a secret vote of his innocense or guilt just to see where we stood. It was tied at 6 and 6. So we started talking. Immediately, we all agreed that Chris was guilty of a great many of things... but was he guilty of the specific charge they were accusing him of? Since Laura's brother was only able to corroborate that Chris had followed them to their house, and not that he got out of the car, or displayed a knife, or made a threat, then it all boiled down to one thing. Laura's credibility. She was the sole person making the claim. Could we believe her. Most of us wanted to. I actually do believe most of what she said. I was very dissappointed from the very beginning that I believed there to be a reasonable doubt in favor of Chris. We talked about it for some time, and took another secret vote, and it had turned 7-5 in favor of a not guilty verdict. We took an open vote on how many of us wanted to see Chris go to jail, and we all raised our hands. But if we followed the rules as they were explained to us, we could not vote on that line of reasoning. We had to vote based on wether or not it was reasonable to doubt that Chris had at that time displayed a knife as he had made the threat. Since Laura was the only one making this claim, we started talking more about her credibility. We did this by comparing her testimony to that of her brothers. Of course they had some minor disagreements, such as who got to the door of their house first, distance estimates and timing estimates, but we dismissed those differences as insignificant. We focused on what we percieved to be the material discrepencies. They did not agree on exactly where Chris had parked his car. This seemed only moderately important, but was more significant than some of the other factors we had dismissed. Next was the discrepency on when Chris had actually parked in their yard compared to them parking. She says it was simultaneous to when she pulled in, and he claims that they were out of their car and nearly in the house before Chris even pulled into their yard. And finally, the biggest discrepency was how many times the gun was fired. She claimed only one shot on her report the police that day, and in her testimony. She claimed that after having called 911, she put the gun in a drawer under the phone and did not touch it again until the police arrived. Her brother, in his statement to the police at the time, claimed only one shot. But in his testimony, he claimed two shots. To us, this indicated that either she, or he was not completely credible as a witness. We all seemed to think of him as the more credible of the two, so this discrepency really damaged her credibility to us all. We took another vote, open this time, and it was 8-4 in favor of not guilty. Some people still wanted to believe her. I challenged those who still were in favor of a guilty verdict to explain to me how it would be "unreasonable" for any of us to doubt her testimony in light of the discrepencies described above. This seemed to win a few more over. We were able to get to an 11-1 vote in favor of not guilty, and we talked with the last gentleman until he also agreed that a reasonable doubt existed. We sent a note to bailif Bailey that we had arrived at a verdict. Someone commented on the fact that we were about to have to walk in the room, looking both Chris and Laura in the eyes, while we rendered a verdict of not guilty. None of us wanted to. We felt that Chris was guilty of many things... just not the particular one he was being charged with at that moment. I hated to think of Laura's dissappointment with our verdict. I also hated to think of Chris sitting there feeling as though he had outwitted us.

I'd like to comment on the other jurors at this point. I was very pleased to be deliberating with the 11 other people I was with. Everyone was able to put their emotions aside and do the job we had to do according to the rules we were supposed to work within. If for any reason I am ever on trial, I hope I have a similar jury panel. We disagreed at the beginning, and calmly talked it out until we could all agree. Never was there a raised voice, or even a hint of rudeness. Everyone was respectful of the other persons, and above all, respectful of the seriousness of the situation.

So we enter the courtroom and render our verdict. Chris did not seem to gloat. No shouts of joy or high fives with his lawyer. He just kinda sat there. I was not sitting where I could see Laura or her brother, so I do not know what their reaction was. I'm glad I could not see.

As soon as we returned to the jury room from the court room, the bailiff told us "I don't mean to make you feel bad... but this guy is a bad guy. Last year he had a capital murder charge against him dismissed for lack of evidence. He's previously been charged with sexual assault, and is currently on probation." My stomach sank. Then the lawyers came by as well to comment to us. The prosecuters said that they knew we did what we had to do, and basically apologized for not having a better case against Chris. They left, and the defense attorney stepped in the room. He almost immediately apologized for the way things were, and was obviously also dissappointed to know that Chris was a free man. He told us that he was court appointed, and was glad not to have to see Chris again. I had a glimmer of understanding at that moment. Even though we all knew Chris was guilty of SOMETHING, we had to follow the rules of the court and return a verdict of not guilty becuase that's what the law, as explained to us, said to do. In the same way, the court appointed this man to defend Chris, which he did to the best of his ability. I don't know how I could do that... but I guess somebody has to. We told him that we all wanted to give a guilty verdict, and would have done so if we had been able. He told us that Chris had said that if he was not found guilty, he was going to join the military to remove himself from this area and from any temptation of hassling Laura any further. Then the defense attorney promised us two things. First, he promised that he would convey to Chris that we all wished to send him to jail... and that we had given him the not guilty verdict very grudgingly. And he also said that he would personally escort Chris to a recruiters office tomorrow during time he had already set aside for Chris's punishment phase of prosecution. He even said that any or all of us were welcome to call his office to know the outcome of that.

Final thoughts:
So I have to go to sleep tonight and be happy with myself. Did we do the right thing? I think we did. I don't feel good about it. I felt sick to my stomach when Bailif Bailey had told us what he knew of Chris. But even knowing that, I still have reasonable doubts about Laura's version of the story. I don't like that we were forced into the position of making that decision. I feel like the prosecutors should have went for a different charge, or have put their case together better. I would have found Laura more credible had her brother not testified. But because they chose the charge they chose, and because Laura's brother cast doubt on some of the things she had said, I personally felt that it was reasonable to doubt her story. I hope never to hear that anything has happened to her at the hand of Chris. I cannot tell you how horrible I would feel if that were to happen. If I read anything else about the two of them in the paper, I hope it is that she shot him for trespassing or breaking and entering. But, of course, my true preference would be that Chris gets his life straight somewhere other than East Texas, and that Laura is able to live in peace and never encounter this man again.

I also want to say at this point that I'm not upset with our system. I don't necesarily think it failed. We are human, and therefore we are going to make mistakes. In a court of law, only two outcomes exist for a mistake. Either a guilty person goes unpunished, or an innocent person does get punished. Of the two, I think that the former is the lesser of the two evils. In fact, I think the ultimate legal sin is to punish an innocent person. Therefore, our laws slant in favor of the person being accused. This increases the chance of a guy like me remaining free from undue punishment. If the cost for that freedom is that, on occasion, a criminal goes unpunished for one of his crimes... I think it's worth the price.

]]> http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/the-system/feed/ 0 Testimony http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/testimony/ http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/testimony/#comments Tue, 19 Nov 2002 04:21:47 +0000 forkmantis http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/testimony
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.
]]> 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.

]]> http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/testimony/feed/ 0 Selected http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/selected/ http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/selected/#comments Fri, 15 Nov 2002 04:18:25 +0000 forkmantis http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/selected ]]> We arrive at 8:30 and the selection process begins. We spend a lot of time waiting, but are finally called into Judge Dianne Devasto's court room for the voir dire(sp?) questioning of the panel. As the lawyers asked questions of us that might indicate particular biases on our part, quite a few people raised their hands. Lots of people had relatives or close friends (or personal experience) with criminal charges placed against them. We were dismissed for lunch. After lunch we had to wait a while as they asked some of the potential jurors who had raised their hands some additional questions in private. Then we were all taken back into the court room. I was sitting in seat 33, which means that for me to get selected, 21 people ahead of me had to be eliminated by one lawyer or the other. In the end, juror 39 was the last juror selected. We did not get any direct information about the case, but through the process we were able to deduce the basic gist of what the defendant was being accused of. He was being accused of displaying a knife to a woman and threatening to kill her. He was present at this point, and during the process was just scanning the crowd and listening to the questions. He never seemed to display any particular emotion aside from moderate interest in how things were being done. As soon as I saw him, though, I thought "He did it." I don't know why, but he just looked like the type of person capable of threatening someone and holding a knife while doing so. When we were finally chosen, we were given parking passes, some instruction not to watch the news or read papers or talk about the case, and instructed to return Monday at 11:00 AM. As I thought about it that day, and on the weekend, I tried to remove any assumptions I made about the defendant's guilt until I actually heard something about the case.

]]> http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/selected/feed/ 0 Jury Duty http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/jury-duty-2/ http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/jury-duty-2/#comments Wed, 13 Nov 2002 04:14:57 +0000 forkmantis http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/jury-duty-2
I arrive at the court house at 8:30... do a lot of sitting and waiting as we go through the process of being qualified and sworn in. It amazes me that a room full of adults seems to have difficulty with instructions no more difficult than what elementary school children have to deal with ever day. Stand in line. Fill out the paperwork and tear the bottom portion of your sheet off before you get to the desk. blah blah blah. Each instruction was repeated numerous times, yet grown adults failed to follow them regardless of the repitition. This is one of those times in life when you are painfully aware of why shows like Cops and Jerry Springer are never short of subject matter. By 11:30 I am chosen as one of 120 potential jurors who are to return at 8:30 on Thursday morning to be selected for a panel. Since I was in town and free, I called my mom up and took her to lunch, which was very sweet of me. If you're reading this and also agree that it was very sweet and caring of me to take my mother to lunch, you are welcome to relay this information any attractive single women between the ages of 25 and 33 that you may happen to know.
]]> Sometime in October I receive a jury summons in the mail.

I arrive at the court house at 8:30... do a lot of sitting and waiting as we go through the process of being qualified and sworn in. It amazes me that a room full of adults seems to have difficulty with instructions no more difficult than what elementary school children have to deal with ever day. Stand in line. Fill out the paperwork and tear the bottom portion of your sheet off before you get to the desk. blah blah blah. Each instruction was repeated numerous times, yet grown adults failed to follow them regardless of the repitition. This is one of those times in life when you are painfully aware of why shows like Cops and Jerry Springer are never short of subject matter. By 11:30 I am chosen as one of 120 potential jurors who are to return at 8:30 on Thursday morning to be selected for a panel. Since I was in town and free, I called my mom up and took her to lunch, which was very sweet of me. If you're reading this and also agree that it was very sweet and caring of me to take my mother to lunch, you are welcome to relay this information any attractive single women between the ages of 25 and 33 that you may happen to know.

]]> http://www.tsuasai.com/2002/11/jury-duty-2/feed/ 0