We entered the court room. After we got settled in, the Judge addressed us, saying,
“I apologize for the delay, the lawyers had some questions to ask me before we began today.”
The judge glanced over to the prosecutor.
“Ms. Riese you can call your final witness.”
The doors to the court room swung open and in walked this shorter man who looks to be in his mid-thirties. He slowly made his way to the witness stand. The prosecutor walked up and asked him to describe the events of February 19. He began describing the scene.
“It was about nine at night and I saw the defendant with the deceased walking towards a back alley in the distance.”
“This is where the body was found correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see anything afterwards?”
“I saw the defendant walking out of the alleyway about 10 minutes later and I remember seeing a gun in his hand.”
“Did you go to the alley to see what had happened?”
“Yes I saw the deceased lying on the ground with a pool of blood around him. I then left to call the police.”
“This is not the same story that the defendant told us yesterday. Thank you for your truthful testimony.”
The defense attorney stood up. The first thing he asked was,
“Didn’t you get a deal from the prosecutor on a drug possession charge for this testimony”?
“Yes.”
“So isn’t it true you just made all of this up to get a shorter sentence on your drug charge.” “Objection your honor this is not a relevant line of questioning,” the district attorney shouted. “This goes to witness credibility your honor,” the defense attorney replied.
“Objection sustained. Move along Mr. Palmer.”
Mr. Palmer looked at the judge with a slight look of disgust. Mr. Palmer started right back up again though,
“Isn’t it also true that you were in debt to the defendant and you could not pay him back.”
“Yes.”
“So wouldn’t it just be great to have the defendant go to jail so you would not have to worry about this debt hanging over your head.”
“Objection” the prosecutor said again.
“Sustained” the judge replied.
Mr. Palmer paused for a moment. It looked like he was trying to come up with something else to ask.
“Aren’t all these reasons, reason enough for you to lie about this?”
“Objection your honor, I object to the continuing of Mr. Palmers cross examination.”
The judge looked down at his table.
“Objection sustained sit down, Mr. Palmer your cross examination is over.”
Mr. Palmer replied,
“Objection.”
“Objection noted and over ruled now sit down.” He walked back to his seat with the look of defeat on his face. The judge said to the witness,
“You are excused.”
He walked out of the courtroom.
The judge then said,
“We will now hear closing arguments, Mr. Palmer.”
He stood up and walked to the middle of the courtroom.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you have seen today the prosecution’s attempts to convict this man. From letting you hear from a witness who is clearly compromised from his deal to drop a drug charge to his debt with the defendant. How can he be trusted?”
He also brought up the fact that the person who testified about the DNA evidence has never conducted a DNA test that has come back as not a match. After talking for about a minute more he walked back to his chair and sat down. Ms. Riese then stood up and walk to the same place were Mr. Palmer was standing.
“The questions the defense attorney has brought up are completely irrelevant. First this DNA tester has only been working for a little over a year. Second we can only get DNA evidence from a person if we take a motion to court and prove without a reasonable doubt that the police have a good and reasonable case. So, it is quite possible for a person to go through many years without not seeing a match.”
“The last witness you heard from had nothing to hide his drug charge even if he was convicted would not lead to jail time. So with that in mind I have proved to you beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant should be found guilty of murder in the first degree.”
She then walked back to her seat and sat down.
The judge then turned to us
“I am now going to send you back into the jury room where you are to deliberate and try to reach a verdict. You can come back with a verdict of guilty or not guilty of murder in the first degree or if you can not reach a decision on that you can also come back with a charge of guilty of murder in the second degree. I remind you that you are not to talk to anyone about the case except other members of the jury. You are dismissed.”
Once we got to the jury room the door was closed and we sat down and got to work. The first thing we did was take a quick vote to see where everyone was. I was the foreman, so I collected the papers and read then out,
“Guilty,”
“Not guilty,”
“Guilty.”
After I read them all I realized that we were split down the middle 6-6. At this point I realized that this would not be as easy as I hoped. I then called the court officer in and asked him to get a transcript of the trial. He returned a short while later with a large stack of papers. He left and we were alone again. The people who voted not guilty were mainly basing their opinion on the fact that the last witness had something to gain by lying to us. They also talked about the fact the DNA tester has never declared that two DNA samples did not match. The people who voted to convict based their opinion on the reasonable explanation given by the prosecutor and the fact that the defendants finger print was found at the scene. After about 10-12 hours of deliberation we went back to the judge and told him that we could not reach a unanimous verdict on any charge, and he said he wanted us to go back to the jury room and try again. We went back into the room. I had now spent 3 weeks of my life doing this and I was ready to get my life back to normal. Before the trial they made us stay in a pretty s***ty hotel so we did not get any outside influences. We also could not talk to anyone without a court officer present. I hate this life and just want it to be over I thought to myself. Then someone started talking again. They pointed out to the rest of us that the people who voted not guilty hung their case on the fact that all of the evidence presented to us might not be truthful, and the people who voted for conviction said that even if you take out the evidence they don’t think is true, there is still enough to convict. Their response always was if this evidence might not be true then all of the evidence could not be truthful. For the next few hours we poured over the trial transcripts to see if we could find any hint that the other evidence given could have been a lie. After a day of no progress whatsoever we were put in a bus and taken back to the hotel for the night. At 8:00 the next morning we returned.
After a further two days of deliberation we finally reached a decision. We told the court officer and he replied that they had to get everyone in the courtroom and it would take another hour or so for them to be ready to hear the verdict. I just hope that no one changes their mind. After an hour the court officer came in and escorted us to the courtroom. As we walked in I just happened to see the look of the defendant. He look very concerned. We got settled and the judge asked me,
“Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?”
“Yes we have your honor.”
“Will the defendant please rise.”
I look over and saw the defendant and the defense attorney standing.
The judge then said.
“How find you.”
“On the count of murder in the first degree we find the defendant….”