we the jury...

part IV

the bailiffs leaned the flow charts, graphs, poster boards, and blown-up aerial views of the crime scene from google earth against a wall of the jury room, then dumped a surprising ammount of evidence on the table...including a .380 semi-automatic pistol (unloaded) and a $1200 receipt for a golden retriever puppy and a puppy starter kit form pet smart ( while the defendant was on the stand i submitted a written question asking that a dollar ammount be placed on the defendant's dog so i could compare costs under item 4 of the defense of necessity...the defense counsel objected and my question was never asked...so much for the attorney as a disinterested conduit of information)...the bailiffs shut the door and we were on our own...left to contemplate the pile of fact buried in distortions on the table...guilt or innocence would have to wait though...a much more contentious issue lay between the jury and a verdict...someone had to be the jury foreman and read out the verdicts in open court...the two women catagorically refused to even consider it and whatever their reasons no-one argued...another juror took the same route refusing to be nominated or elected...another lived in the city where the crime had taken place "i drive those streets every day, i'm out."...another copped the plea that he had been the foreman of the jury he had served on five years ago...sensing a consensus building i obviated the debate by saying i would do it and we turned our attention to the evidence and the proceedings...it had been a tedious day and we all had noticed the judge zoning out...it had been a non-linear affair...my notes show that in one hour during the friday session of the trial there were thirty objections and counsel was asked to approach the bench twenty-six times...hideously disjointed..no continuity...but that was what we had to work with...we were hesitant to convict on cruelty to animal charges...the events took place on the defendant's property, his dog was tethered and could not escape, the witnesses agreed that the dogs were interacting even if they disagreed about how the dogs were behaving...no-one showed me that the defendant didn't believe his dog was being harmed and property rights seem sacrosanct under our legal system...the prosecution had not shown beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant had not fulfilled the requirements of a defense of necessity on this charge and we voted to aquit...criminal mischief was another matter...while we wouldn't convict someone for defending his property we disagreed strongly with how he defended it...part of criminal mischief is behaving recklessly and either way you cut it this was reckless...one side of this argument mainatined that the defendant had pulled his dog back by its tether at which point the golden retriever sat down and the defendant shot it in the head while it looked up at him with its puppydog eyes...the defendant said he shot the dog while it was biting his left arm...if that was the case he was fortunate that the dog's motion didn't spoil his aim causing him to shoot himself in the arm or worse...or knocking him off balance causing him to shoot a by stander...discharging a firearm in a residential area is serious stuff and if he did it while being attacked it was perhaps understandable but still reckless...on the otherhand if he pulled his dog back and shot the retriever while it was sitting there looking at him that struck me as deeply sociopathic...either way it seemed some sort of supervision was in order so we voted to convict...we knocked on the door and told the bailiff we had reached our verdicts...the newspaper said we deliberated for two hours which seemed too long to me...but when i sat down and worked it out it was the case...we talked longer than i thought...we were led back into the courtroom and the judge asked who the foreman was...i waived the verdict sheets in response...not too respectful but i got away with it..the judge told me to stand and directed the defendant and his counsel to stand as well and then i read out the verdicts...the judge subverted the other juror's efforts to avoid a public statement by asking each one in turn ( including me...the verdicts had to be unanimous) if they agreed with what i had read out...they did...the judge then told the defendant to make an appointment with the probation department before sentencing the next month neatly telegraphing judicial intent...the judge, prosecutors, and defense counsel then thanked us for our service and we were dismissed...i got a check a few weeks later for $104.80 for time and mileage...i assume the other juror's received close to the same...that would be about $733.50 for all of us...i spent mine on the garden at iun...no idea what the other's went for...it didn't cost much psychologically...all it did was validate my viewpoint about a number of issues...but i can't help wonder what it cost me as a taxpayer and a citizen.