On Thursday morning, we walked into the jury room and there were doughnuts on the table. There were from the judge. :) So, that was kinda cool. We started with a witness for the prosecution - the "gang expert" - with maps and video clips of gang events/parties. They had some technical problems with the video that I think three of us in the jury could have fixed had we been asked. The officer had extensive knowledge about the defendant and his various past crimes. We broke for lunch and the defense cross examined him afterwards. There was another witness for the prosecution - then we were sent out of the room.
When we got back, the defense brought a witness out of order. So, this guy said he was the brother-in-law of the victim (the family relationship was more complex than that). His testimony conflicted with the victim - but matched up pretty well with the conflicting testimony of the booking officer. Suspiciously so. The Prosecution suggested that he had been brought in by a court spectator to corroborate that conflicting evidence and she pretty much ripped him apart. It was also clear he was working off of secondhand lies - he got his "facts" way wrong.
(there was a suggestion by the defense that two guns were present, instead of the defendant passing his gun to the actual robber. The witness suggested that he heard the victim say that the robber used two guns himself - which is clearly nonsense. How would you hold the "loot"? "Here, hold this gun while I take your wallet.")
After that, we were back to more damning evidence of past crimes. Arrest reports, information on graffiti and gang signs, etc. - it was exhaustive. There were a few extremely heated sidebars from both sides and lots of objections for various and sometimes unclear reasons. The prosecution finally rested - and the defense called no one and had no witnesses or evidence. Granted, the burden of proof was on the prosecution - but it was still telling that the defendant didn't take the stand on his own behalf. If I was claiming to be framed - you can believe I'd be testifying. As I said - it was very one-sided.
As a side note - I was expecting the bible and "so help me god" as part of the swearing in. Instead, no bible and 'under pains and penalty of perjury". Interesting.
With both sides rested, we came to closing arguments. The prosecution summed up their case, the defense did his, then the prosecution did a rebuttal. She was pissed off and nearly dumbfounded at the attempts of the defense to plant doubt.
And with that - we broke for the day. I had expected things to go longer, but the defense didn't really present anything so we were sort of done. Kind of a weird stopping point, but that was it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment