Case Resolved

Yesterday, we were told to report to the courtroom as usual at 9:00 this morning. We were all waiting in the hallway at 9:00. And we were still waiting around 9:30. The bailiff came out and told us that there were things going on and that we could leave the area but to be back at 9:45. Some time after 10:00 we were told to hang in there. We finally got taken into the courtroom after 10:30 (our usual midmorning break time).

After we all got seated, the judge explained that the case had been resolved and that we were being dismissed. We are free to discuss the case now.

Jury Selection
I covered this earlier. After they thoroughly questioned, thanked, and excused dozens of other potential jurors my name was called to fill the empty seat in the jury box. They had had enough of the jury selection process and they didn't ask me any questions. The just wanted to get started after I was seated in the jury box so I was in.

Opening Statements
The Deputy District Attorney ("D.A." for short) told us that the defendant was on trial for a series of robberies. She told us that he and some other people would go to places where day laborers would gather and offer them work. He'd get his victims in the car and he'd take them to an isolated place, threaten them with a knife and demand their money.

In the opening statement, she played us a phone call he made to his girlfriend or sister. (I think it was the "one phone call" you're allowed when you're arrested. Apparently this one phone call is recorded.) In it he said he "did it" and that she shouldn't take any of the blame.

She told us that the trial was going to take a long time because there were 17 counts of robbery and kidnapping that we were going to have to decide. And that the victims would be needing an interpreter since they don't speak English.

The Defense Attorney seemed to say that this was a case of victims wanting somebody, well, anybody, to be punished and that the victims aren't to be believed when they say that it was his client who committed the crimes.

Testimony
Just like the D.A. said, testimony was slow. There were 15 victims of the 17 crimes and each of them needed an interpreter. I'm not sure if we heard from all 15 victims. I think there were a few who hadn't yet testified. But we heard from most of them. The attorneys would ask a question, the interpreter would ask it in Spanish, the witness replied, and the interpreter would reply in English. Most of the times the witness would not understand the question and would give an answer that was what they wanted to say but not a response to the question. So questions were usually asked many times. Sometimes they'd just give up and move on when it was clear that the witness couldn't figure out what was being asked.

Everybody in the courtroom except for the jurors had heard many of the questions and answers before. There was a preliminary hearing earlier in the year where all of them had given testimony about the case. The trial seemed to be a replay of that. (There were probably more questions at the trial since the preliminary hearing establishes that there probably is a case to be made against the defendant and doesn't have to have the whole case argued.) At times it literally was a replay of that hearing. When a witness gave an answer in the trial that wasn't quite the same as what came out in the preliminary hearing, the defense attorney would read from the transcript of the hearing and ask the witness if what he said back then was the truth or to ask about the discrepancy. These exchanges made my head swirl since there were interpreters and transcribers involved both times. He'd read a question asked in the preliminary hearing that was translated into Spanish, the reply was translated into English and all this was taken down by the court reporter. In the trial he'd read the question from the transcript, that would be translated by the interpreter of the day who would then translate the reply. Somewhere in these four interpretations (five if you count the court reporter) there must be something whose meaning changes. These rehashings of the preliminary hearing usually seemed to be splitting some very fine hairs.

One of the victims apparently was pretty good with English but gave his testimony through the interpreter. The D.A. started out by reminding him that even though he might understand what she's saying that he needs to wait for the question to be translated and to answer the translated question. That didn't always happen. She'd be asking a question and he'd jump in before she had finished asking (and long before the interpreter had a chance to finish asking the question since the question wasn't finished). He had to be reminded over and over again that he's to wait for the interpreter's version of the question.

It takes a fantastic memory to be an interpreter. There were times that the witness would go on and on and never pause so the interpreter had to store up the long response before giving it to us in English. She'd take a few notes along the way in some sort of shorthand, it looked like. She'd include pauses and shrugs. I'm sure that they told the witnesses how the interpreting worked but it got very confusing for them sometimes when the attorney would ask something like "what color is my hair?" and the interpreter would ask that question. The witness would usually answer as if the interpreter had asked the question.

The question "what color is my hair?" was asked of many of the victims. The D.A. has dark brown hair (and we were told that it is her natural color). The answer sometimes was "blond" (once they got it through to the witness that it was the D.A.'s hair, not the interpreter's, that was being asked about). Apparently the women who were with the defendant during the robberies were described as having blond hair. This apparently was to establish that some people from these foreign cultures say any hair lighter than black is blond.

We got to hear testimony from Deputy Sheriffs who had investigated some of the robberies. We heard from a deputy who had found some of the victims by going to the "stops" where they wait for people to come to offer work. We heard from a Spanish-speaking deputy who was assisting the first one. And we started hearing the testimony of the detective who was in charge of these cases. The D.A. had finished her questioning of him yesterday when we got our evening recess. We had expected to hear the cross examination this morning.

But there was a problem with the testimony of one of the victims yesterday afternoon. He had said that the robber was wearing a jacket with long sleeves. Later he said that the robber had a tattoo on his arm and pointed to his forearm just below the fold of the elbow. The defense attorney was all over him about how he could see tattoos when they would have been covered by long sleeves. The defendant does have tattoos where this witness said they were but couldn't have known that without hearing about it from someone else.

The People's case apparently broke an axle running into this pothole. If one witness could give testimony that obviously was not his own, how many of the others were similarly not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Resolution
So The People decided to settle for guilty pleas for the three counts they basically had a recording where he confesses to the crimes and to drop the rest.

The creep is going to jail for 15 years. I forget whether we were told he has to serve 10 or 12 years of that since he's had prior a conviction. One of the counts (kidnapping) he pleaded guilty to could have resulted in a life sentence so he's getting off easy.

His girlfriend and the other woman pleaded guilty to some sorts of charges in this case. There was another man involved that we hadn't yet heard much about.

Here are some news reports about this case through the preliminary hearing (nobody was ever in the audience part of the courtroom so I doubt that this resolution will make it to the papers):

• Trio arrested on suspicion of robbing migrant workers
• Man accused of robbing day laborers faces trial
• Arrests Made In Connection With Day Laborer Assaults (this one, being a television station's site, has a video segment interviewing some of the victims)