I Object, Your Honor
We have a saying where I work that gets used way too often. "Only in Prince George's."
I work in Prince George's County, Maryland, a suburb of the District of Columbia. Although the County government likes to use the phrase "Gorgeous Prince George's" when they're pimping their Chamber of Commerce brochures, make no mistake. Even a catchy slogan like that one (it is catchy, isn't it?) doesn't change the fact that it's one of the most violent counties in the country. We boasted a new record in the number of homicides last year. (I don't think they put that in the brochures, though).
Speaking of homicides, let me get back to my rant du jour.....
This past Monday I testified in a homicide trial for a man accused of beating another man to death with a baseball bat (while the victim was asleep in a La-Z-Boy recliner). Oh yeah, you can just imagine how nasty that scene was. I'll spare the details, but imagine smacking a grapefruit with a rolling pin. Same concept.
Anyway, I only had to testify on Monday and there were other witnesses scheduled to testify over the next day or so (all in all, it was a pretty open and shut case). The case was given to the jury to deliberate on Wednesday.
I was at the State's Attorney's Office on Thursday to meet with an attorney about a sex offense I'm working on when I happened to run into the prosecutor from the homicide trial.
"Did you hear what happened in our case?" she asks.
"Nope," I cleverly respond.
She then proceeds to tell me that the judge had to declare a mistrial. That kind of thing happens all the time, so I wasn't terribly surprised by that. What did surprise me was the reason. Apparently one of the jurors didn't understand English that well and was unable to properly participate in the deliberations.
Honestly, how the hell does this happen? I know there's a screening process in place for potential jurors and I know that they are asked a variety of questions before even being selected to be on the jury. And those questions come from both the prosecution AND the defense. So that means that this person's linguistic affliction went undetected by TWO trained trial attorneys. Scary thought.
So, on behalf of everyone, I'd like to say thank you to Consuela, Guadalupe or whatever the hell your name is for fucking with our judicial system.
I work in Prince George's County, Maryland, a suburb of the District of Columbia. Although the County government likes to use the phrase "Gorgeous Prince George's" when they're pimping their Chamber of Commerce brochures, make no mistake. Even a catchy slogan like that one (it is catchy, isn't it?) doesn't change the fact that it's one of the most violent counties in the country. We boasted a new record in the number of homicides last year. (I don't think they put that in the brochures, though).
Speaking of homicides, let me get back to my rant du jour.....
This past Monday I testified in a homicide trial for a man accused of beating another man to death with a baseball bat (while the victim was asleep in a La-Z-Boy recliner). Oh yeah, you can just imagine how nasty that scene was. I'll spare the details, but imagine smacking a grapefruit with a rolling pin. Same concept.
Anyway, I only had to testify on Monday and there were other witnesses scheduled to testify over the next day or so (all in all, it was a pretty open and shut case). The case was given to the jury to deliberate on Wednesday.
I was at the State's Attorney's Office on Thursday to meet with an attorney about a sex offense I'm working on when I happened to run into the prosecutor from the homicide trial.
"Did you hear what happened in our case?" she asks.
"Nope," I cleverly respond.
She then proceeds to tell me that the judge had to declare a mistrial. That kind of thing happens all the time, so I wasn't terribly surprised by that. What did surprise me was the reason. Apparently one of the jurors didn't understand English that well and was unable to properly participate in the deliberations.
Honestly, how the hell does this happen? I know there's a screening process in place for potential jurors and I know that they are asked a variety of questions before even being selected to be on the jury. And those questions come from both the prosecution AND the defense. So that means that this person's linguistic affliction went undetected by TWO trained trial attorneys. Scary thought.
So, on behalf of everyone, I'd like to say thank you to Consuela, Guadalupe or whatever the hell your name is for fucking with our judicial system.
posted by P. at 10:57 PM
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