A Juror and a Christian, Part 2

The court spent all day Tuesday listening to the six witnesses for the prosecution.  The experience was not a pleasant one.  The witnesses were good witnesses and performed admirably on the stand.  However, the two primary witnesses (the eyewitness and the woman who received the threats) were understandably emotional while giving their testimony.  Clearly, these women had suffered immensely on account of the violence.

On top of this, the defense attorney comported himself horribly throughout the entire case.  I remember thinking to myself after he had started to question one witness, "If the jury returns a Not Guilty verdict, it won't be because of the defense attorney!"  The attorney openly scoffed at witnesses, mainly during his closing arguments but also during his examination.  He asked leading questions, which made me kind of mad, actually.  Most of his questions were poorly worded and difficult to understand; in one instance, he questioned a witness for ten minutes regarding one detail and still didn't really get the information he was asking for, a scenario he could have avoided by asking a good question in the first place.  He was a bit elderly, probably in his sixties, so it was understandable that he would have trouble with details.  However, he was mixing up dates while questioning witnesses, referring to people by incorrect names, and  fumbling for questions.  In my opinion, he was thoroughly unprofessional.

In contrast, the heroes of the case were the court interpreters.  Many of the members of this family were Honduran, including the defendant, so the entire dialogue of the court had to be translated into Spanish.  There were two court interpreters, a young man and a middle-aged woman, who traded off about every 30 minutes.  Quite frankly, I was astounded at the performance of these individuals.  There were two witnesses who didn't speak English, so they translated those examinations for the entire court (all the other times they were translating for the defendant only).  These interpreters translated EVERYTHING, even down to the "um" witnesses would utter between words.  They reflected intonation and voice inflection.  They would catch words that were repeated and thoughts that were left unfinished by the speaker.  It was a spectacular performance.  It still amazes me to think that those two people do that every day, day after day after day.  What a profession!

The assistant district attorney, who was prosecuting the case, mirrored what I would have conceived him to be.  He was young, tall, extremely well-dressed, articulate, wore a wedding band and glasses.  He made his case very well.  The witnesses were, in order: the police officer who arrived on the scene the night of the attack; the woman who testified to witnessing the attack; the detective assigned to the case; the police officer who arrested the defendant the following day; the woman who received the threatening phone call; and the man who was severely beaten.  The other victim did not appear in court because he had been in the country illegally and consequently was deported back to Honduras.  

Having been a security officer in the past, I was less than impressed with the police officer who responded the night of the attack.  The material witness for the entire case was the woman testified next.  She had been walking with the other two men when they were attacked, she was ignored by the attackers and had opportunity to call 9-1-1, and she had talked both with the 9-1-1- operator as well as the police officer who arrived on the scene.  She testified, in no uncertain terms, that she had seen the defendant wielding a piece of wood ("like a 2x4 board") and hitting Victim A in the head and Victim B in the back.  She also testified that she had seen him kicking both of them on the ground.  However, she admitted that she had not identified the defendant to the police that night.  In her brief interview with the police, she had only identified two of the four men.  The following day she saw the defendant on the street and called the police, identifying him at that time.  He was then arrested.

We would have then heard from the police officer who made the arrest, but he was in the restroom.  It was getting on toward lunch, so the detective was brought in instead.  His testimony was largely immaterial except that he gave the details concerning the positive identification of the defendant that occurred after the defendant's arrest.  The arresting police officer then appeared in court and testified that the material witness had told him on the day of the arrest that the defendant had carried a gun and said to them the night before, "Who wants to die tonight?"  This was different than her testimony given on the witness stand.  In court, she had been clear, consistently, that it was one of the other men who had brandished the gun and threatened the victims with death.  She had also testified that the gun had been tossed to the defendant in the middle of the incident.

Next, the woman who had received the threatening phone call was put on the witness stand.  I don't think anybody in the courtroom had any doubt whatsoever ... she was clearly terrified of the defendant.  During the entire examination, she acted like a woman who had been through a horrific ordeal (as she had, of course.  Her husband had been beaten nearly to death.).  She was emotional yet gave her testimony admirably.  Finally, the victim himself came to testify.  He showed us the scars on his head, told us he couldn't smell any more because of the attack, explained to us that he has trouble remembering things now; but most importantly, he doesn't remember the attack.  He only remembers being approached by the first attacker and then waking up over three weeks later in the hospital.  This was the end of the first day of testimony.

That night, Tuesday evening, was the most difficult time for me personally, I think.  I was distracted the entire evening, thinking about the case.  Thankfully, I had something fun to work on, planning a camping trip next month with some friends.  But I was very uneasy at the thought of having to eventually make the decision regarding the guilt or innocence of the defendant.  It took me a little while to fall asleep that night, too.  Particularly, I was pondering whether I could, in clear conscience, return a Guilty verdict based on the testimony of only one witness.