I’ve sat on a jury of an actual trial for the first time. I’d previously been assigned to civil court and never got past selection. It was interesting - to a point. The details the prosecution offered often went to mind-numbing overkill. I was surprised at how low-key everyone was, so different than what occurs in scripted material when the cameras zoom in on the actors, making them larger than life. The defense quietly objected about 20 times and was over-ruled all but once. The judge advised the man to make his point during cross examination. The most surprising aspect was the acceptance of technicalities that exonerate the accused in fiction. The car in question was said to be blue. It looked black in the pictures. I assume it was navy blue. One can beat a parking ticket on such an error. The most glaring issue for me was the inability to tell if it was actually the accused on the tapes. The testimony of the witnesses had to be accepted as fact. The case involved marijuana, but none was seen in any of the pictures or video. A trained canine sniffed out the odor of weed in two packages in question at JFK, which the accused later handled. Two female employees of a post office in Queens were intercepting parcels and passed them to the defendant, who gave them to a local dealer. It was almost foolproof, as the senders would not put in a claim for such missing contraband. The shenanigans of the women were caught on tape. They were perpetrating their crimes while on the government clock. I’m more perturbed at their arrogance than their criminality, which netted approximately $45000 in seven exchanges. I almost feel sorry for the defendant, who was approached by the other two, and whose wife and baby were in the rear of the court throughout the proceedings. However, his full story was not revealed. Perhaps he is a dealer of all kinds of drugs, in which case I’d have no sympathy for him, even though I believe authorities should concentrate on more serious crimes than marijuana distribution, as long as pot dealers are discreet and not flaunting their business under the noses of the police. I would not vote to legalize ganja, as I’m unsure of the unintended consequences it would bring. That may be just my conservative nature resisting society’s continuance of pushing the envelope left. I think life has improved dramatically in my years on earth in all phases except morality, ethics and education. A convincing argument can be made that mankind is no more challenged in the first two of those than at any other time in its history. There is no doubt in my mind that educational standards have fallen dramatically, however. Anyone who has read my books might say literary standards have collapsed as well. Anyway, what I assumed would be an easy day was anything but. I was sure there was a plea bargain underway, and that we would not even have to render a verdict. The attorney for the defense did not call a single witness. He simply made his points during summation, his main one being that the sum on the day of the arrest was only $340, hardly big bucks. He did not question why there wasn't a transcript of the defendant's confession. We had to take the arresting officer's account of it as fact. He did not question why there wasn't a log of the conversations between the defendant and his accomplice. There were only logs that showed they were in constant communication on the days in question. I thought the case by the lawyers on each side was lacking. Had there been a couple of hardcore skeptics on the jury, the guy would have walked. The deliberation took two hours. The final two holdouts were convinced when I, as foreman, read from the transcript of the arresting officer's testimony. I'm sure the defendant was crappin' his pants when he was busted, but there was no evidence to doubt the integrity of the authorities, or the dogs, and there was definitely criminality in effect. It was a privilege to serve with the group. The situation got heated only once and very briefly. Of course, people talked over one another at times, but overall the behavior was civil. I did not look toward the defendant as I read the verdict. The guy did something stupid, but I don't know that he's a hardcore criminal, and he has a family. It's not easy taking a man's freedom away. I hope he provides evidence against the others to reduce his sentence. Better yet, I hope he appeals, although time might give the prosecution a chance to make a more solid case.
Sure enough, juror Armand Sarkisian is the second cousin of the George I knew at WMU. The fact that George has a huge scar from open heart surgery in the 60's verified it. He is a retired teacher, and his son and daughter are married. I hope he's on Facebook.
The floating book shop will return tomorrow - if the forecast is wrong.
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
No comments:
Post a Comment