As mentioned a few days ago, I had jury duty this week.
The trial was slated to last five days, Monday through Friday... and I'd like to think that I had something to do with shortening the proceedings by a full day.
Let me explain, if you have a little time on your hands.
First off, let me just say that it was a very, very rewarding experience. As some of you know, I've had a difficult time with Authority during my life -- not so much as a criminal, but as a fun-loving preacher's kid who cannot stomach "official" hypocrisy in any shape or form. A result of this attitude has been a lifelong sense of disempowerment and financial limitation, as I've maintained a confrontational stance viz. The Man. In the courtroom and jury deliberation room, however, I found myself in the midst of all sorts of professional types. There was an astrophysicist on the jury, as well as a couple psychotherapists, a retired concrete worker, an international tax consultant, a software developer, a housewife, a dog-sitter, a student and an Iraq War Marine who just finished massage therapy school (I know; only in Boulder). There was the judge herself, the defense lawyer (a Tom Sawyer character who was really, really good at his job -- just look at his image, the first one at the top of his website), the ladder-climbing prosecutor, and the slightly-too-slick lead investigator, who sat at the prosecution table and offered "expert" testimony over a two-day period. I realized that I am on a par with each and every one of these folks -- and that my presence is every bit as important as theirs.
A Drug Task Force made up of local cops, Boulder County Sheriffs and about a dozen DEA agents busted a "major drug ring" in January of 2006. This culminated a 2-year investigation that involved some pretty disgusting goings-on, much of which came out in witness testimony. Most of the Big Shots are already in prison, having been convicted (or pled guilty) in Federal Court. Three of them, however, have not been sentenced, and had been "persuaded" by the prosecution to testify against the defendant. A fourth Big Shot -- the Biggest Shot, at least in terms of this "gang" -- did not accept any sort of deal, but had pled guilty in return for a lesser sentence -- which the government went back on, sending him down for almost twice the agreed-upon time. This was the defendant's little brother, and he testified for the defense.
Without dragging you through the entire trial, let me just say that it took about two days for me to realize what a sham the whole thing was. The government had NOTHING -- and worse, it was clear that the prosecution KNEW it had nothing. The defense shredded the two, three and four-time felons, trotting out one fat 3-ring binder after another to show where their story had changed since previous testimony (some at their own trials, some during police questioning, some during pre-trial proceedings).
When the felons were dispensed with, the prosecution trotted out the lead investigator, whose syrupy smile put me on the defensive immediately. He and a previous witness -- another cop -- talked ad nauseum about a single day during the two-year investigation -- December 8, 2004 (now drilled into my mind forever). I thought to myself, "Finally, they're giving us something to chew on." But no. They went on and on about surveillance techniques, about a "suspicious" rendezvous on an isolated Weld County road, about a blue Honda Passport "belonging to the defendant" pulling into a liquor store parking lot, and then driving to a trailer court, where surveillance was broken off. They dazzled us with details for two solid days.
The judge, as it turned out, had issued the jury question forms, in case we wanted to ask something of a particular witness. So, the morning of the third day (Wednesday), knowing that the lead investigator would still be on the stand, I scratched out a question and waited to see if the defense attorney would ask it for me. After a couple more hours of questioning, the lawyer sort of danced around the question, using his tactical skills to paint a very, very damning picture against the prosecution -- but he never came right out with it.
So, when the lawyer was finished and the judge asked the jury if it had any questions, I raised my hand. The bailiff practically sprinted across the room to take my question, which he delivered to the judge. She looked it over, wrote something at the bottom of the form, and said, "Counsel approach." Both lawyers looked over my question, nodded their heads and went back to their tables.
Here's a paraphrase of what I asked (since they didn't let me keep it):
Officer McNiven and Sgt. Goldberger have gone into great detail around the surveillance of December 8, 2004. Was the defendant at any time positively identified as either a passenger or the driver of the blue Honda Passport?
If not,
How did the authorities determine that the defendant was present on that day?
Goldberger, the lead investigator, was still on the stand, and to his credit, he tried his best to keep up the charade.
He spent two full minutes explaining how it was dark, how his men did not want to blow their cover by going into the liquor store, how the investigation was just getting started... then he wanted to read the question for himself. The judge handed it to him, and he held it for probably 30 seconds before answering the second half.
"Well," he said, "we never got a positive i.d. on the defendant, but we did see three men get out of the car at the trailer park -- two hispanic, one white. The hispanic men matched the height and build of the defendant."
At that very moment, just into day three, you could see the wind go out of the prosecution's sails. The entire jury had moved up to the edge of its chairs in anticipation of Goldberger's answer, and I watched the jury slide back into its chairs, shaking its heads and clicking its pens.
I can't be sure, but from what several of the jurors told me later, that's the precise moment when everyone made up their mind: not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty (five charges: 1) possession of cocaine; 2) possession of methamphetamine; 3) distribution of cocaine; 4) distribution of methamphetamine; 5) conspiracy to distribute both cocaine and methamphetamine).
When the defendant's brother took the chair, the first words out of his mouth were, "I don't know why they went after my brother. He had nothing to do with any of it."
I believed him, even if he's connected to Columbian drug lords and will probably be set for life when he gets out 17 years from now. He'll be 45 years old then. And he won't have been killed in prison for snitching on Columbian drug lords.
The government's total evidence against the defendant -- who was shown to be a hard-working construction worker who has not missed a day's work in eleven years -- consisted of the following: seven calls (out of over 65,000), over a two-day period, from the defendant's cellphone to one of the drug runners' phones; and the fact that the blue Honda Passport was registered to the defendant. Through skillful questioning, the defense lawyer showed how the defendant's brother frequently "borrowed" the defendant's car, and that the defendant frequently left his cellphone in the car, attached to a charger.
Deliberation -- as pure an experience of democracy as I've ever enjoyed -- took approximately eight minutes, including choosing a foreman -- though we stretched it out long enough to eat our sandwiches, which the court was good enough to provide free of charge. I'd say the interested parties had to wait about 45 minutes from the time we were given our instructions.
***
As for the moral bankruptcy of the War On Drugs, I have only this to say: it is abundantly clear -- and I'm not the only jury member to give voice to this insight -- that the government had held this trial over the head of the defendant's brother in order to put pressure on him to give up the names of his suppliers -- the Columbian drug lords. There was never a case, and this poor hispanic construction worker is now $22,000 in the hole for legal expenses. His young wife and son have been put through Hell, and up to a couple days ago were faced with the very real possibility that their working-class husband/father would spend 20 years in prison. The three multi-time felons who testified against the defendant -- who were each caught lying over and over and over again -- may or may not be given a break on their sentences, for having given the government "substantial assistance" in seeking a conviction in this case.
Meanwhile, coke and meth continue to flood the streets, much of it "allowed" into the States by the very government that plays this nasty game with peoples' lives. Prisons are filled with drug players from all levels of participation. Violence showers down on the streets of America because drugs continue to be illegal, and hardly anything is done to address the addiction problem at the root of the War. The Drug War validates the careers of many cops, prosecutors, investigators and lawmakers, so we can't count on any of them to put a crimp in their gig. It's all about Black Hats vs. White Hats for these people -- and they seem to sleep at night just fine, no matter how many lives they ruin in the process.
Do drug dealers ruin lives? You bet -- they create more addicts to keep the game going.
People are addicted to drugs.
Cops are addicted to both addicts and their addictors.
And the world spins on its axis, infinitely patient with the insanity of its human inhabitants.
(Cross-posted over at Mimus' place.)
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