Friday, August 24, 2007

The trial is over

I've been serving on a jury for the past 5 weeks, and we finally finished everything yesterday. It was a gang-related murder in Compton. There were two juries, one for each defendant. One defendant was the driver, the other was the shooter. We found our guy (the driver) not guilty of Murder, Attempted Murder, and Discharging a Fire-arm into a Motor Vehicle. We think he just gave the wrong guy a ride that day. The other guy is guilty as hell and I hope the other jury comes to that conclusion. They were still deliberating when we finished, so I don't know what their verdict was.

It was a really interesting experience. It was my first time serving on a jury. I learned a lot about the judicial process, gangs, and Compton. The courthouse was in Compton, so I got to know the little area around there pretty well. I had a couple weird experiences outside the courthouse speaking with or over-hearing locals.

We had a pretty good group for our jury. We all became friends by the end. One jury member is even planning on a little jury get-together sometime in the future.

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