The first jury pool member to speak up was the one that got the ball rolling. It was the tiny little voice of juror number 3 coming from the back row of the jury box. Apparently she asked what was on everyone's mind. She was articulate, often motioning with her hands and she spoke with a slight Australian accent. Her question for the judge was simply why was I being tried for a criminal offense. She said she didn't think it made any sense. The judge recalibrated his voice as if talking to a small child contemplating disobedience and asked her if she owned property. When she responded she did he then asked her if it would be ok for people to trespass on her property. She gestured with her hands, dipped and bowed her head and conceded she supposed not.
It was voir dire--French meaning "to speak the truth"--for the jury being empanelled for my criminal trial for trespassing.
This is an update to my "No Man Is An Island" diary entry about my arrest for illegal lodging. But this one actually went to a trial before my peers. Maybe that's why it started out as an update and quickly grew into an epic.
I couldn't post it here in it's entirety , See my web page for the rest.
And so far the judge had been pissing off most of the jury pool. His obvious favoritism towards the plaintiffs and overbearing manor laced with condescension towards the potential jury prompted others to speak out. One gentleman said his son had been sentenced 5 months for trespassing after merely drinking beer with some friends on someone else's property. Another gentleman--who claimed to be a former criminal law attorney--stood up and described the judge's statements as clearly prejudicing the jury.
I was hoping he was right.
I was sitting there surprised. Not by my public "defender" who told me I had "no defense" and was "going to fucking jail" (no joke the twerp really said that!). Not by the judge who was acting like I was caught throwing a drinking party in juror number 3's living room. I was literally taken aback by the jury. I did not foresee their reaction. I thought of the words of Studs Terkel...
"You wonder: How stupid are the American people? Are my books a hoax? Because the books say there's basic decency in the American people, and basic honesty, and a basic intelligence. Am I wrong? No, because the cards have been stacked against people from the beginning. The dice are loaded."
--"The Sun" Nov 2006 Issue
In fact, I had expected a group of the stereotypical San Diegans for a jury pool--conservative, authority-loving retired navy guys and defense industry contractor workers ready to kick some habeus corpus.
Instead, it was like these folks were all bussed in from some different San Diego or maybe even the nearest chapter of the ACLU up in San Francisco.
Meanwhile the prosecutor, her role currently supplanted by my appointed attorney, played no visible part in the proceedings. She remained silent and almost motionless over at her separate table, as if carved in stone. While the judge and my appointed defender went through the motions of how to get rid of this jury, she waited patiently, shoulders straight, eyes forward, her mane of blond hair falling just past her shoulders, her hands neatly in front of her resting on the table. Peering over at her I couldn't help but think of the Egyptian Sphinx--truly a mysterious marvel.
More jurors weighed in and the mood in the courtroom quickly moved from confusion and bewilderment to benign hostility. I felt triumphant! Throughout the courtroom there erupted a celebration of the human soul--a burst of truth.
The judge discharged all of them. A new jury would be cut from the deck and the dice carefully loaded.
Actually, before the judge discharged them my duly appointed public "defender" tried to discharge them first. More about him and his colleagues in a bit but first let me back up and explain how this whole thing got started in the first place.