Wow, I am horrible just leaving my 1st degree murder trial just hanging like some soap opera. Well, a soap opera that doesn't air everyday. Actually, are soaps even on anymore? Regardless, shame on me.
I do apologize and I will do a wrap up. Soon. Really.
Truth be told, I need a break from writing after finishing a 21 page paper and then jumping right into a 10 pager.
School, that's one of the reasons why I haven't been around. My procrastinating had to end - you know deadlines and all. Work, work has been busy and stressful lately. And then there's the strong possibility of James no longer having a job. Did I mention they just did lay offs in my hospital with no promises that it won't happen again....soon.
So life has been stressful but there's been a lot of goodness as well....that goodness is named Lillian.
I'm excitedly planning her 5th birthday party. I'm very excited about the party. The heart is breaking over the whole 5 year old thing. Le sigh!
Weight loss hasn't been great, hasn't been horrible. Well, I should reserve comment until I weigh in the week after enjoying 3 separate Thanksgiving dinners.
Updates coming......
Day 2- Tuesday - arrived and I got to the courthouse about 30 minutes early. No special juror security entrance so the same pat down as the day before. Went to the courthouse by my lonesome where we were instructed to enter a side door. This juror room was much larger, including a table which actually could sit all 14 jurors. There was a men's and women's bathroom inside and that was about it. I was greeted by "breakfast" which was individually wrapped donuts and juice in little sealed cups. I will thank Weight Watchers for my decision to skip breakfast. I don't drink coffee but apparently, it wasn't very good.
One thing I suggest if you ever become a juror. SHOW UP ON TIME. Two people arrived late which honestly annoyed the hell out of me. No one wants to be there any longer than they had to be so you potentially having us start late does not make you a favorite amongst the other jurors. On top of being late, one of the jurors then had to pump. Problem when there is no outlet that will reach the bathrooms. Another delay in finding her a private area...which ended up being the judge's chamber bathroom.
I don't believe I mentioned was that there were actually 2 defendants on this case. My guy - the alleged shooter and another guy - the alleged driver and the one who got the gun. I have no idea what the other guy was actually charged with. Same trial but 2 sets of defense lawyers and 2 juries. And just to clarify - this was a drive by. Defendants allegedly drove into rival gang territory, shot one guy 4 times in the legs - he lived, drove a couple of blocks and shot another guy in the chest - he did not survive. Oh and all this happened in 2007. Love our speedy judicial system.
So we were finally escorted down a hallway to the court room. Now this is the court room I was expecting - large, stately and marble. I was surprised to see 14 other people sitting in jury like formation. Turns out that both juries would be hearing the case at the same time. We took a seat, notepads and pencils in hand. There was no distinction between me as an alternate and the "normal" jurors. I found that interesting so I thought you may too.
The court was set up just like on TV - Judge raised up in front, stenographer (HOW DO THEY DO THAT?), audience at the back, jurors on the side (hard wooden chairs - ouch), and the State facing the judge with backs to the audience. The only exception was that the defendant and their lawyers were seated directly across from the jury box facing us. It's so much fun to stare at potential murderers for hours each day.
State calls a witness...the mother of the victim. As all can guess, very sad - gang banger or not, a mother lost her child. The evening of the shooting, someone had called the mother and told her and she drove to the scene and found her son dead/dying on the sidewalk. It was short and neither defense teams cross examined her. The mother was granted permission to stay in the court and watch the remainder of the trial.
This is where things become a bit confused. I wasn't allowed to bring notes home and I didn't record anything in the evenings as we were strictly forbidden to discuss the case with anyone so I'm not quite sure of the order of things.
There were a few "eye witnesses" who were out walking that evening who saw the van drive up the street and shot the victim. The State called these individuals as witness and that is where it became clear of all the lies that were happening. That is pretty much how I sum up the case LIES LIES LIES. Swearing to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth means NOTHING.
I understand that it's been 4 years since all this has happened but do I believe you when you say you have no recollection of testifying in front of a Grand Jury? No. It seemed like everyone was taking back what they had testified to 4 years ago. "Did you identify the defendant in a line up" "No" "But you did - here, isn't this your signature?" etc. etc.
You could see how frustrated the State was becoming - this is obviously not the testimonies that they were expecting. Were they lying then or lying now? This case was not so clear anymore.
After the State did their questioning, the defense had their turn. The trick? When my guy's attorney went up, the other jury had to leave. When the other guy's lawyer went up, we had to leave. So as you could imagine there was a lot of waiting. Waiting during breaks, waiting during side bars, waiting during cross examinations. Thanks for helping pass the day Sudoku
Lunch. What was lunch that day? I can't remember but there was carrots. I took a heaping spoonful of them because after all, you can't mess up carrots. Never mind, you can mess up carrots. That's when I vowed to bring in my own lunch.
The jury room was still pretty damn quiet. There were little conversations here and there. I still did not know one person's name but some personalities started to come out which is always fun to discover. On the topic of pregnancy, "Do women really crave pickles?" nice little gems like that.
The most difficult testimony of the entire trial came on Tuesday afternoon. We walked in and he was already at the stand dressed in a prison jumpsuit. We quickly were informed that he was being tried for murder in an unrelated case. This was the friend of the victim who was with him when the shooting occurred. You could tell right away that he had NO DESIRE to be there.
The short of it is that shortly after the shooting, this guy identified the defendant as the shooter. When the State asked him to stand up and point out the shooter, the guy refused to do so. He stood up, kept his head down and would not even look in the direction of the defendants. He refused to ID him even though he previously had. The guy now claims that he lied to police about who did the shooting. The State then asked about the Grand Jury testimony which, of course, this guy had no recollection of. The State then read EVERY line of the transcript from the Grand Jury testimony. The State would read a line and ask "Did you say this?" and the guy would say "I don't remember". This went on for a mind numbingly long time. This guy was obviously lying through his teeth. He was very heart broken for his friend - that I believed. So many lies.
During the case when I wasn't blowing my nose or having a mini coughing attach, I did a lot of watching. I would keep an eye on the defendant at key points of testimony. I watched the lawyers a lot - the objections/overruling/sustaining all were quite numerous and again entertaining. I was also very compelled by the audience. I watched them and I wondered if they were watching me right back. Can't help but be a bit paranoid.
I promise to wrap this up soon!
A Weekly Weigh In!
The past couple of weeks I have been completely disorganized in every aspect of my life. My house, my school work, my work work, my weight loss. Although I swear by tracking per WW standards, I have fallen off the tracking horse.
To track, you must log every food/drink that you consume and assign it a points value. For the past several months, I have tracked religiously (with the exception of actually writing down 0 point value foods) with the help of eTools provided by WW on their website. It makes things easy but it still is a bit time consuming.
For the last two weeks, the stresses of life took over and I bailed on, quite frankly, myself. I tried to stay conscious of what I was eating and make mostly good choices but when I don't actually see my points ticking away, I am much more likely to over indulge. Not good and I hope to get back in the groove of things starting today.
Normally, I gain weight when I don't track but for some reason, I have actually lost. Now I am not taking this as a sign that I can stop tracking, I actually feel like I dodged a bullet and I really don't want to do that each and every week. Here's hoping that my naughtiness doesn't catch up with me.
October 27th - down 0.4lb
November 4th - down 1.4lbs
I am now down a total of 29.2 lbs. COME ON 30!!!
I started tracking again today - including the 5 Laffy Taffys I devoured. Hopefully I will also get my house cleaned, homework caught up on and work organized. Ha, well I can dream.
And I finally FINALLY reached a mini milestone that I had set for myself. According to the BMI chart, I am finally out of the "obese" category. I've never been so happy to be overweight.
After being led to the jury room and shown lunch - chicken patty in tomato sauce, noodles, broccoli. The first jurors pretty much picked the broccoli clean except for the stems. I had the chicken and veggie - skipped the noodles.
We were told that we could call our work to let them know we were chosen but were threatened with death if we dared called anyone else. The thing is that the bailiff then left the room, closing the door behind her. I left a message with my boss and talked to some of my shop volunteers. Since there was no mention of texting, I quickly texted James and turned off my phone in fear that somehow they were watching us.
The room was very small. The table wasn't even big enough to fit all 14 or even just the 12 "normal" jurors. Eventually some of the silence was broken as people began to panic. One gentleman was starting a new job on Wednesday. One woman had to find a private area to pump in. That's when I realized that there was truly no opportunity for any of us to give a valid excuse as to why we should be excused.
Opening statements and the first witness started on Day 1. The State led with "Ladies and Gentleman you will be getting a front row seat on gang life in Chicago. " Oh goody.
Please insert here the exact moment where my cold went from I have the sniffles to full blown nose blowing, eyes watering cold. Perfect.
I cannot remember if this was part of their opening or during the questioning of the first witness but a video was shown of the defendant in custody in a small, white room with a steel bench and 2 chairs. The first witness, at the time an Assistant State's Attorney (I think!), interviewed the defendant and pretty much secured a confession. The defendant talked about what happened that day, how he got the gun, and exactly how he reached out the van and shot the gun at people - not once but twice.
Hearing that confession really made me wonder if this was going to be an open and closed case but as I was going to discover in the days ahead, it was actually anything but clear.
It was truly interesting watching an actual real trial in progress. On TV, the only source of legal info that I have, the lawyers are so polished and smooth. In actuality, there is a lot of stopping, checking notes, mispronunciations, forgetting names, etc. Best yet, was the back and forth between the two legal parties. The eye rolling and sighs were very obvious and helped me stay very amused during a serious case.
I believe we were dismissed around 6:30pm and were told to report back at 10am in a new court room. All 14 of us were escorted out of the building by security and walked to the parking garage. Then, we were on our own. So really, if anyone were waiting to kill us, all they had to do was hang out in the garage and wait. That was super comforting.
When I received my jury summons for Monday, October 24th, I was pretty indifferent to it. I had only been called once before in college and never even had to end up going at all. The thought of serving on a jury was actually not unappealing to me. I figured it would be a perfect time to catch up on some school work that I had been slacking on. After all, the vast majority of people I know were never actually called to serve as a juror, they just sat around all day and were eventually dismissed.
Things started going downhill the Friday before. My car brakes started to grind and our bathroom plumbing problems could not be ignored. My week at work was filling up rather quickly. Although I wouldn't mind serving on a jury one day, that particular day became less and less appealing. I should have known what would happen.
I was assigned to Criminal Court at 26th and California. For those not familiar with this west side of Chicago area, let's just say that you pray you get out of there before sunset. It's not a fun place to be. As I read up on the court house, it said that you will not find a cab to take you home in that area.
I arrive and much like airport security, you and your possessions are fully screened and I head up to a large room on the 3rd floor. I was given the number 6 and then sat at a table so that I could spread out and slowly get started on my paper. By 10am we were shown a video that told us about our time in lock up jury duty. I was making plans as to what candy bar from the vending machine to have for lunch and what I should do if I got out of there early.
At about 11am, a gentleman came out and announced two group numbers....Group 6 was one of them. There was about 70-80 people led out to a courtroom where we stood in the hallway for a good 30 minutes.
Once we were finally allowed in, we sat in the galley of the courtroom. This area was separated from the rest of the court by a glass divider but speakers allowed us to hear what was going on inside. It was a rather small, circular room. You could see all the typical people inside the court - judge, clerk, attorneys and the accused. We were welcomed by the female judge and were told the charges against the young man before me.
1 Charge First Degree Murder
1 Charge Attempted First Degree Murder
1 Charge Criminal Battery with a Firearm (I believe that was it)
My breath was momentarily taken away. Yes, I knew I was in criminal court but for whatever reason, I never thought I would be a potential juror for a murder case. I knew right then that I had no desire to be chosen.
The judge called in 14 people who took a seat in the jury box. Each person was asked the same questions including- name, general location, occupation, children, if you knew any police or lawyers. I am a nosey person and all but sitting through 14 interviews was mighty tedious - especially when the lunch hour was upon us and my stomach started to rumble.
A break was taken while lawyers and the judge met and I shared my packet of gum with my fellow hungry potential jurors. Another 30+ minutes pass. Finally the judge arrives back, asks a few follow up questions and chooses 8 people to serve on the jury.
Huh, they are not wasting time. I figured they would want to interview everyone first and pick the best of the lot. I thought wrong.
I had hoped I was in the next 14 to be called so I could quickly be dismissed. Again, I really thought I wouldn't be picked. I was #13 called to be questioned so I sat and listened to another 12 people. When it was my turn, I answered truthfully (bad idea?) and hoped that the judge would pity me for having a 4 year old and working full time AND going to grad school.
Another break and I went to the rest room. Tell me how a LARGE court house attached to one of the busiest prisons in the country has only one women's bathroom with one toilet.
I return and receive my $17.20 paycheck. You read that right....seventeen dollars - ohhhhh yea. Bonus, my work lets me keep the paycheck AND I get paid. Now where to spend it all?
Break is over and she reads off 4 names. Good, the jury is now filled. But wait, alternate #1 is chosen. Then alternate #2 - Me. So so close.
We are immediately brought back to the jury room. 14 strangers sitting in silence and contemplating if the food served to us was edible. It was not.
