Anchor ads are not supported on this page.
Print Edition
Classifieds
Stories
Events
Contests
Music
Movies
Theater
Food
Life Events
Cannabis
March 27, 2024
March 20, 2024
March 13, 2024
March 6, 2024
February 28, 2024
February 21, 2024
February 14, 2024
February 7, 2024
January 31, 2024
January 24, 2024
January 17, 2024
January 10, 2024
Close
March 27, 2024
March 20, 2024
March 13, 2024
March 6, 2024
February 28, 2024
February 21, 2024
February 14, 2024
February 7, 2024
January 31, 2024
January 24, 2024
January 17, 2024
January 10, 2024
March 27, 2024
March 20, 2024
March 13, 2024
March 6, 2024
February 28, 2024
February 21, 2024
February 14, 2024
February 7, 2024
January 31, 2024
January 24, 2024
January 17, 2024
January 10, 2024
Close
Anchor ads are not supported on this page.
Some trees and a man died for this
It was a profound honor to serve in this role, and I encourage anyone who thinks about avoiding jury duty to reconsider. To ask your participation in exchange for not having an appointed or elected individual decide your fate, in the event that you end up in criminal court, is very little, and all twelve of us in the second jury learned so much about our relationship to the law, how to reflect as reasonable people on our own presumptions and what other reasonable people have to say about them--and most importantly that that kind of exchange should be happening among neighbors with disputes, to name one pertinent situation. In many versions of the events of March 28, 2013 that we considered, there was only one unreasonable person at the scene; I have lost count of the number of moments we listed over the months before when reasonableness was possible but rejected for whatever reasons by Mr. Vilkin.— June 24, 2014 5:51 p.m.
Some trees and a man died for this
Interestingly, one of our jury members was a Vietnam veteran and retired police officer who happens to own the exact same model of .44 magnum. His description of the weapon, its operation, what it means to own one, etc. was very powerful.— June 24, 2014 9:53 a.m.
Some trees and a man died for this
The jury was not able to construct a circumstantial case that John Upton was carrying or even still possessed the .22 caliber pistol registered to him on the morning he was killed. The ex-cop on the jury confirmed what we all kind of knew, and had already had confirmed for us through the testimony surrounding the .40 caliber found in a nightstand: as you say above, private transfers of firearms without any record is legal in California.— June 24, 2014 9:46 a.m.
Some trees and a man died for this
The juror who had questions about "and" (whether its use between each part of a law or only at the end changed the way we were supposed to understand the logical relations between the laws' parts) was not an English professor, although that sounds like something an English professor might ask about in a graduate seminar, maybe. Unfortunately, the juror--later dismissed for other reasons--would not take the word of the two of us with extensive experience teaching English at universities. I even named the rhetorical device for him (polysyndeton) and made an argument for why in a legal context it does not change the relations of the parts. He was having none of it. At that point in the deliberations, one of our little bylaws was that I, as foreperson, was happy to submit any question on behalf of the entire jury, even if only one person wanted to ask. Technically, then, I guess an English professor submitted but did not ask the "and" question.— June 24, 2014 9:42 a.m.
Some trees and a man died for this
We wanted to hear Ms. Zeller's testimony at that point because we had to pause deliberations about the murder charge while we waited for responses to a couple of jury notes. With half an hour to wait for the judge to answer, we began discussing the assault charge. It was very interesting to me that it was that discussion that, in the end, helped us discard self-defense as a justification for either crime. It was also the discussion that led to a juror attempting to share an experiment he had done at home. We notified the judge, the juror was dismissed, and as a new jury, we did not feel the need to request Ms. Zeller's testimony.— June 24, 2014 9:32 a.m.
Some trees and a man died for this
That note indicates two things: 1. The majority of our deliberations focused on making sure that we all understood the legal terms so that we were confident that we all started with the same understanding of the state's definitions of the crimes in question. 2. The juror who submitted the note, the same who was dismissed later that day, was having difficulty following our discussion; two elements of justified self-defense are that the person "reasonably believed" that *danger* was imminent, and that immediate *action* was necessary to prevent that danger from arriving. We tried very hard to help him express his confusion and his ideas, but he chose to try to demonstrate them to us in a manner that was very clearly in violation of our jury instructions.— June 24, 2014 9:19 a.m.