May 31, 2000
Dear Everyone:
Free at last!
Our contribution to the (terribly important) judicial process
finished yesterday, a full five working days earlier than originally
anticipated. We have done
our civic duty and have been excused with the thanks of the Court.
But not before we got a crash course in “Methamphetamine
Manufacturing 101”. It seems
that a person who may not even have a High School diploma can, with the
right experience, and a few handy household items, turn over-the-counter
cold remedies into a narcotic.
In fact, it’s so easy that the state has made it a crime to be
caught anywhere in the multi-step process.
Which is what our defendant (presumed innocent) did
on four separate occasions over a 14-month period.
Poor schmuck kept bumping into cops with half-finished products
in his possession. Defense
counsel did what he could (this case had Public Defender written all
over it). Maybe the
defendant had nearly 100 cold tablets in his car because he had really
bad allergies. And just
because they were already half-dissolved (Step One) is no reason to pick
on the poor guy.
Four days of police and expert testimony, dozens of
photographs, charts, hotel sheets and towels soaked in solvent (bad
sign) and one of our jurors only fell asleep at least twice that I could
hear (snoring in the back row is a dead giveaway).
Four days of sitting still all day long, listening to
mind-numbing testimony, then going home to log into the computer at work
to check my email and take care of anything critical.
Plus one evening when I had to go to an
ARMA Dinner Meeting.
The prosecution rested Friday afternoon.
The defense had no witnesses ready to testify just then.
His witnesses were scheduled to begin Tuesday morning after the
long Memorial Day
weekend. So we got off a
little early on Friday. On
Tuesday, the defense council stood up and rested his case.
He didn’t have any witnesses to testify, but it was a good
strategy to give us three days to forget what we’d heard and for all
eight counts in the indictment to blur together in our collective heads.
The prosecution reminded us of all the bad things
the defendant (presumed innocent) was accused of doing.
Then the defense counsel stood up, pointed out that we had just
finished celebrating Memorial Day, reminded us that our forefathers had
given their lives to preserve Liberty against the tyranny of
King George
(might have been getting his wars a little confused there), waved the
flag (figuratively) and begged us not to turn
Contra Costa County into a
Police State by
convicting his client of anything.
The prosecution then made a second speech, refuting
just about anything the defense had said, with the exception of Monday
being Memorial Day. Then the
judge (who really was very nice) droned on with instructions until lunch
time.
After lunch, the jury, twelve good persons and
true, considered all the testimony, reviewed the evidence, pondered the
situation. Had the
prosecution proved its case beyond a Reasonable Doubt?
There were eight separate counts to consider, ranging from
possession of components of methamphetamine-manufacturing (bad), to
possession of methamphetamine (very bad), to possession of
methamphetamine with intent to sell (very,
very bad!), to felon with a
gun (a given).
(As to the “possession with intent to sell”, the
defense suggested that perhaps the defendant (presumed innocent) had
simply gone together with some friends to purchase that much
methamphetamine in order to get a better price, but only for personal
consumption. In other words,
a drug-buying co-op. That
could fly, couldn’t it?)
With so many things to consider, it took the jury a
good hour and a half to nail the defendant’s speed-cooking little butt
to the wall on all counts.
(“Drug-buying co-op” indeed!) So
my civic duty has been done and I shouldn’t be called upon to serve for
at least a year. And I hope
it’s a lot longer than that before I get another summons.
That’s twice I’ve been on a jury and twice we voted to convict.
Deliberations give me terrible headaches.
In other news…
Movies.
We saw
Frequency several weekends
ago. It’s an interesting
variation on the concept of
time travel.
In this case, no actual person does any travelling through time,
but their words do. And the
information they exchange, via an old ham radio, with the help of
unusually strong
Aurora
Borealis (“Northern Lights”), is enough to change the present by
changing the past. We
enjoyed it.
Last weekend we saw
Mission:
Impossible 2.
Much more exciting than Frequency, plus it has
Tom Cruise instead
of Dennis Quaid
(no aspersions on Dennis).
MI2 is pure adrenaline and not
a lot of logic. Bad guy
wants to unleash a lethal virus on the world.
Ethan Hunt (Cruise) must stop bad guy and save pretty girl.
He's very acrobatic and uses guns that seem to have an
inexhaustible supply of bullets.
And he changes identities more easily than most people change
their socks.
He also hangs by his fingers from gigantic cliffs
and goes through a climactic fight scene that could have been cut by
five minutes. Don’t try to
make sense of it. Don’t try
to spot Anthony
Hopkins’s name anywhere in the credits.
Just enjoy all the silliness of bad guys who can’t hit the broad
side of a barn against Cruise taking out tanks with one bullet.
Remember, the theater is air-conditioned.
Love, as always,
Pete
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