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...as a juror.
I've just spent a week and a half on a jury for an arson trial up here in Schenectady. It was quite a few days.
A woman and her son were accused of hiring a 14-year-old boy to burn down an empty apartment they owned for the insurance. Last week, the prosecution presented a parade of experts on fire and insurance, plus the boy, a friend of the boy who was also asked to do it, and various other people involved. The defense started yesterday afternoon, with the mother on the the stand first. I'll admit that last night, I though it may have been possible to create a reasonable doubt, for her, at least.
Today, those thoughts were gone in midmorning. The DA had her admit she gave false information on her claim form. Also, she had deleted all her texts and emails on the day of the fire -- but no other time. The phone showed a photo she took of her son the day after the fire (and after she was notified of it) with him with a very celebratory expression. She had no answer when asked why she had never had insurance on the house, but took it out a month before the fire, and the fire broke out the day before her next payment was due.
Then came the son. His lawyer tried to dream up some sort of plot by a woman who was dating the mother's estranged husband. But that woman was on the stand and denied she had anything against the defendant, so there was no evidence. The son's lawyer was eventually told to drop that line of questioning. He had little else to go on.
Then the DA came in. He eviscerated the son. He pointed out that the only part of the defendant's story that matched the previous testimony was anything that could be checked; everything else he said had no corroboration. At one point, the son said that he didn't know the 14-year-old had a bike, then said that security camera footage showed him on his bike.
Big mistake. No one had specifically identified that person as the 14-year-old (from the court's point of view). He was only someone fleeing the scene (the boy had said that an image on the video was him, but the video wasn't shown to the jury at that time, and when it was shown, he was not identified specifically as the boy). So the son hemmed and hawed and tried to pretend he was in another courtroom.
It got worse. The son was put in jail when he was charged with this (he was on probation at the time). It was like pulling teeth to get him to admit he was in jail at all. He received two calls from his girlfriend. In the first, he got pissed hearing that the girlfriend had talked to the DA, saying she would ruin everything. There was a second call that clearly implicated his mother. His reaction to it all was to giggle nervously.
They broke for lunch after that. It was a long lunch, and when we came in, the defendants were gone. They had taken a plea.
A bit frustrating to spend that much time on the case, but really I couldn't imagine any verdict except guilty on all counts. They let us talk to the lawyers about the case as consolation.
It was fascinating. The lawyers for the defense had told them time and time again that they should take a plea, but they thought they knew better. In addition, they admitted the DA had done a great job of mustering the evidence. The only hope they had at the start was if the boy who lit the fire would have trouble articulating things, but he actually was a very good witness (he's moved to a special school in the interim and is turning his life around, BTW). I realized that one lawyer -- who seemed to me to be only so-so at his job -- looked that way because he had nothing to base a defense on. Evidently, the mother was confident that, since neither she nor the son had actually lit the match, they would be found not guilty. At worst, she expected to be deported to Guyana (the people involved were all Guyanese; there is a large community in Schenectady), not put in jail.
I was surprised to be chosen. One funny thing was when we were asked to talk about ourselves. I figured it didn't matter, so when I mentioned my favorite TV show, I said Doctor Who. Turns out the DA was a fan; he said it was the first time he had met a fan of the Doctor on a jury and asked for my favorite Doctor (I am on the record that it's David Tennant :) ). I figured that would be it -- we had something like that in common and it would disqualify me. Turned out, the defense decided the fact that I read science fiction might make me more receptive to their version of what happened.*
Another highlight: the first defense witness was the boyfriend of the mother. Under cross-examination, he made the claim that the DA had told him to lie to convict the mother. You don't piss off a DA like that. He had a transcript (which included the witness saying that the mother "was only a piece of ass to me," another highlight) and would have nailed the guy for perjury if he persisted.
*That the girlfriend of the estranged husband supposedly masterminded the plot to frame the defendants. She had testified and she was no Lex Luthor.
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