Jury Duty AGAIN

You heard me: Again. At 32 years old I have now served on a jury twice. Lucky me. Here is my account of of the first time. Since I already explained the process there, I will move straight on to the case itself.

Again, it was a criminal case. Again, it involved unlawful possession of a firearm in the first degree, however this time there were a couple key differences: 

1. There were a total of 6 charges that the jury all had to decide on one by one

2. The defendant was pro se

Number two turned out to be a major issue. What could have been a 1 week case turned into 2 (including deliberations) because the defendant didn't really know much of what he was doing. He had counsel, but still. Okay, so here's the breakdown of the charges.

On the night of Jan 12th, 2016, Mr. Cole (the defendant) had smoked a blunt with someone he knew outside the bar at Latitude 84 in Tacoma. He apparently was not told that, what he thought had been regular marijuana, was primo - soaked in embalming fluid. (when I look up what "primo" is, it mentions cocaine so now I'm confused but that's what the court was calling it so I will say that as well.) Anyway, so he realizes something is off and leaves the scene in his car. On his way home he ends up crashing through someone's cyclone fence. Somehow, the door is either locked or stuck; so he climbs out the window, tries to push his car, tries to back it out etc but can't. The occupants of the house are watching all this and calling the cops.

The first to arrive is officer Bratcher. After that, Officer Bradley and Welsh arrive. The suspect is attempting to flee, they catch up, a struggle ensues. During the scuffle, which lasts 2-3 minutes (time that out on your watch. It's a long time!) officers Richie and KP Smith come. Welsh is on his left arm, Bratcher is on his right. Bradley is attempting to hold down his legs and/or use his taser which seems to be non-functional. When Richie comes on the scene, he attempts to use his taser as well, and although it sounds like it should be working, it has no effect. This whole time, Cole is kicking, flailing, actively resisting, and doing everything he can to basically get away from the situation.

At one point, near the end, Welsh calls out "Gun!". Welsh's account of the situation is he felt something on his abdomen (they are all down on the ground at this point), which turns out to be the barrel of a gun pointed up at him as it is stuck under his belt. He manages to wrench the gun out of Cole's hands and it falls to the ground. Then Welsh feels Cole's arm wraped around his waist, specifically his duty belt, and Cole manages to grasp onto his firearm and there's a pulling motion as if it was an attempt to get it free. Welsh manages to get Cole's arm away from there. KP Smith picks up the gun from the ground and puts it aside. At that point, they manage to get the suspect handcuffed and there's a whole account of him at the hospital as we also have Dr. Ursic testifying about his mental state while being checked out at TG.

So, here are the charges:

Count 1 is assault in the 3rd degree with a firearm (towards officer Welsh)

Count 2 is unlawful possesion of a firearm in the 1st degree

Count 3 is assault in the 2nd degree of officer Brtacher

Count 4 is assault in the 2nd degree of officer Bradley

Count 5 is was stricken and never announced

Count 6 is attempting to disarm a law enforcement officer

Count 7 is driving with a suspended license

Okay so obviously I didn't go into nearly all the detail surrounding the case so you might be thinking one way or the other already, however there was a whole lot that I didn't mention. And just like the first case I did, definitions of specific words are key. You literally have to pull each word apart and scrutinize it. 

All 12 of us had to roll over what the legal definition of "intoxication" was. What the legal definition of "assault" was, and (oh my god) the legal definition of "knowing" which I'm going to link because damn, I hate that one. We all did. 

We also had to start over after a full day of deliberations because one of the jurors had a thing she had to do and I guess also was experiencing emotional termoil from the case and wanted to be excused. I believe it was a blessing in disguise, even though we had lost a full day. (All in all, it was 2.5 days of deliberations) 

All of this really hinged on two things.

1. Did we believe Welsh's testimony about the gun because he was the only one in direct contact with it and most of the jury had their doubts as to where the gun had come from in the first place. (This was a big convoluted mess and that I won't delve into).

2. The intoxication part of Cole's defense. Because the law explains that if you are voluntarily intoxicated that doesn't absolve you of any crimes you may commit. However, that leaves involuntary intoxication as a possible "out" to possible crimes.

Because Cole had no prior knowledge of this laced blunt before he smoked it (and testified that he had no memory of events until bits and pieces came back once he was at the hospital), we believed that his actions didn't have intent to harm (and yes, there's a legal definition for the word "intent" as well. ugh) the officers. Yes, he was kicking, jerking, what-have-you, but only with the intention of trying to get away. When the gun ended up pointing at Welsh's abdomen, it was because Welsh had been trying to get in control of that arm and in the process of pulling it out from under him, the gun had come with it. We believed that he did not have the intention of using that firearm to harm the officers. Same goes with the "attempting to disarm". We believed that Cole's hand had inadvertently just found the gun as something to grab onto in his attempt to get back up or to get away. The same goes with Bradley and being "kicked" (his assault charge). The only thing we found him guilty of was possession of the firearm, which was still a contentious issue because even though the firearm was admitted into evidence and sitting at our table during deliberations, there was speculation of it in the first place, which again I won't get into. Charge 7 was a stipulation and he'd already pled guilty to that one.

We basically concluded that the State did not give us enough evidence to convict Mr. Cole. They had the burden of proving guilt and unfortunately due to the police officer's inconsistent testimonies, the handling of the evidence, and various other things the State could (or might have) provided and didn't, we couldn't find Mr. Cole guilty of the assaults.

What we learned later was that if he had been found guilty of the assaults, he would have been looking at life in prison without the possibility of parole due to this being his 3rd strike.

We were also finally able to look up what "embalming fluid" can do to a person: 

"Effects of embalming fluid included visual and auditory hallucinations, euphoria, a feeling of invincibility and increased pain tolerance. The high lasts from six hours to three days. However, the drug also produced feeling of anger, forgetfulness and paranoia."

SIDE NOTE:

We had one witness named Jeffrey Katz. He had been the detective assigned to Mr. Cole's case. I am a complete and utter sapiosexual. As he was explaining why they didn't fingerprint the gun, using a pen as an example, all I could think of was how cute he sounded, how obviously smart he was, and how well he was able to explain a concept into words that everyone could understand. You could say I was enamored. Unfortunately, I did see a ring on that blasted finger so no chance for me! lol Not that I'd be able to just walk up and talk to him as being a member of the jury anyway. Oh well.

One of the jurors, Jessica, coined the phrase "Jury wink" or "Juror wink" because damn, police officers be just like firemen lol Officer Bradley was pretty hot, so was Welsh, as was Bratcher (poor Bratcher - he was pinned up and tangled with the fence during the entire scuffle.) But I'd choose me some Katz. xD

Oh and for future reference, I am fulling intending on getting a work note to be excused next time! This is my progression into madness via Facebook:

Jury Duty

Nothing like forced sense of obligation and duty with a threat of jail time for non-compliance to throw a kink in your routine.

This was my first time ever being summoned for Jury Duty and it was a very interesting process. There was a lot of sitting around and waiting. First you sit in a large room with 150 people and watch a welcome video about how great it is to be a juror (two hours later I had to pee so bad that I was about to run out of that room and probably be in some kind of contempt of court, who knows.) Then you wait around to see if you will be assigned to a possible case. Once your name is called, you are given a colored badge with your number that corresponds to a case. In my situation, there were only 34 other jurors with me for this particular case, but the bigger ones can call up to 60 people.

I can't even imagine this. 60 people. I'll tell you why.

The next step is to wait some more until the courtroom is ready. Everyone gets ushered into the pews and you're facing a judge, a prosecution lawyer, a defense lawyer, and the defendant. First you have to introduce yourself; Where do you live? What's your job title and where do you work? Are you married? kids? What jobs do your kids have? Basically at this point, they're trying to find out if there is any conflict of interest with the current case. They tell you the bare minimum about it (in this case, possession of a firearm). They were interested in anybody that said they loved to read (like crime novels), or people that had a bias opinion for or against cops etc. And for a couple of hours these lawyers go back and forth asking questions about what it means to be a good witness, or if any one of us would have a problem with applying the law to a case if we had a personal feeling involved. They went through the people that had "hardships" on green slips that told them about doctors appointments or how it will hurt them to not get paid their wage and mostly, they were excused or exceptions were made. There were 35 people total and only 14 spots available. I, obviously, was chosen as one of the lucky 14.

It was The State of Washington v. Jeremy James. The charge was unlawful possession of a firearm in the first degree. As it was a criminal case, we knew that all 12 (2 alternates) jurors would have to be unanimous in the verdict.
Mr. Horibe was the prosecution lawyer. He was as smooth as silk. The man was tall, handsome, and suave. He obviously knew what he was doing and was very confident in his ability as a lawyer to convince us that Mr. James was guilty. He also seemed to have some kind of habit of scrunching his nose up every few seconds like he constantly felt a booger he wanted to pull out of his nostril.  
Mr. Katiyama was the defense lawyer. Actually there were two. Mr. McDonald I would call a greenhorn (this is a shout out to anyone that's seen Deadliest Catch or knows about commercial fishing) and appeared to need more experience about cross-examining a witness on the stand for sure.
The Judge, Mr. Costello, seemed like a very nice man. I don't have much else to say about him, as we were technically never allowed to talk to him. All questions would go through his Judicial Assistant, and I can't seem to remember her name! Megan, or Michelle. I think it was Michelle. Let's call her Ms. Boobs. The dresses and shirts she wore, with a lanyard falling down the middle of her chest, kind of accentuated that... area. 
And then there was the Court Reporter. You know, the person who types verbatim all the stuff that goes on in the courtroom? I actually managed to sneak a picture of her:

Seriously, she was in constant state of frown like everything in the world annoyed her. So I will call her Grumpy Cat. Because I can.

Now, I will try to summarize all of the court happenings here:
There were 4 witnesses: Officer Moody, Officer Criss, Officer... tow truck watcher, and a detective whose job it is to examine evidence for fingerprints and such. There were a number of articles of evidence, including: a single bullet found at the scene, a gun (with a magazine of bullets), pictures of the gun in the vehicle, and most importantly, dash cam video sans audio of what went down that night.

Basically, a car was pulled over for not having transferred a registration within 45 days of a sale. They discover the driver, Mr. Aroyo (sp) had a suspended license and when frisked, they found a smashed pill encased in a burned pouch of aluminum foil. They also found a man with a warrant out for his arrest. There were two women, and then also Mr. James. When officer Moody searched the car (with consent from Mr. Aroyo), he found a single 9mm bullet in a blue jacket, in which Mr. James stated the jacket was his, but the bullet was not. Due to this and the fact that the women had not consented to have their purses searched, they booked the car in order to serve a search warrant on the vehicle. It was towed to the police station.

At this time, I would like to point out that a lawyer's job is to beat a dead horse. Repeatedly. Each lawyer would ask the same question of a witness. And each lawyer would reiterate statements until they bore it into your brain like a botfly laying an egg. Now, I would also like to point out that every move they made was verbalized, probably for Grumpy Cat to make sure it all ended up on the court record. "I am stopping exhibit 8 at 14 minutes 39 seconds. I am fast forwarding exhibit 8 to 15 minutes, 12 seconds."

After the search warrant was issued, Moody and Criss searched the car and found a glock 19 handgun - a 9mm hand gun, with a fully loaded magazine and in ready-to-fire condition, found under the front seat where Mr. James was sitting in the rear. I won't bore you with all the details about how and why, but basically the law states that possession of an item is not just owning it, or holding it, but having held it at one point, even if just to say "cool" and hand it back. It's also about being able to have control over the item, being able to stop someone else from taking it. The law also states that you must know that it's there. That was the main point of contention. Did the state prove - because they have the burden of fault - that Mr. James knew the gun was there?

After officer Criss found the gun and booked it into evidence, he ran into Mr. James a couple of days later, arrested him, as as he was in the backseat in handcuffs, Officer Criss asked: "Would I find your fingerprints on that gun?" Mr. James paused, and then said "I don't know." That clinched it for most of the jury. To most of us, this infers that he knew the gun was there, and he probably had touched it, but long enough to leave prints? He wasn't sure.
(FYI: no fingerprints were found on a gun, nor did it have a registered owner).

In my opinion, and the opinion of many other jurors, the defense did a horrible job actually trying to defend Mr. James. They had nothing to go on besides trying to redirect the jury into discrediting the police officer's testimonies, and possibly trying to infer that they may have planted that bullet and they were trying to frame Mr. James. They did a decent job on one of the jurors, though. We had an 11 out of 12 vote for guilty, and one guy just could not say he was guilty without more evidence. He kept talking about the blue jacket, where was it, what happened to it? Because tying the bullet to Mr. James would indicate that he had to know the gun was there, and therefore was guilty of possessing it. And we kept saying that it didn't matter - the blue jacket was not submitted into evidence, nor did it need to be, and so it could not be used in our decision one way or the other.

In reality, we only deliberated maybe 2 or 3 hours, but the one guy finally saw reason. Mainly because we were given a sheet that specified the law exactly, and explained what 'possession' and 'knowing' was.

Just for humor's sake, I wanted to talk about a juror that had been dismissed prior to deliberations. His name was Lee, and although I don't know his age, I believe he said he graduated high school in 1955. I don't really understand why old people constantly make noise. They constantly suck on their teeth, or hum, or make other such noises. As jurors, we are not allowed to whisper among ourselves or ask questions or make any kind of real motions while we're watching the case; Lee completely ignored this. He was always humming (this seemed to make Grumpy Cat more grumpy), and actually whispered to one of the others about something. That afternoon, Lee was dismissed. Lesson: don't piss off the judge or break his rules.

In the end, I was glad that I wasn't the only one who felt the way I did with my personal verdict. I really was the perfect juror, not discussing the case with anyone, nor did I ever really think about it outside of the courtroom, even over the weekend we were on break. We had learned that he'd had a prior conviction of a serious offense (not detailed) which caused him to be forbidden from possessing firearms - this was not given to us until after our verdict, so we wouldn't be biased against him. Now that it's rendered guilty in this case, his sentencing will be on Thursday but I'm not sure what it will be, and as jurors we couldn't concern ourselves with his outcome if he were to be found guilty because that might sway our opinion. We rendered our verdict, and now Mr. James will have to pay the consequences.

This is a picture of the Pierce County Armory Building next to the courthouse. 

Just because it's awesome.

credit goes to spaceworkstacoma.com