RETIRED WARRANT

I got booted

Well Jury Duty was swift and fast today. I got up and as planned after talking with Laila I drove down to the 24th Street trolley station and I caught the San Diego Trolley downtown.

I was supposed to get to the courthouse by 7:45 AM but the trolley was so slow I got there at 7:55 AM despite catching the trolley at about 7:15. The trolley was really crowded and so I had to stand the whole way but I didn’t have to try and find parking and all.

Also with Comiccon in town and a huge wreck on Harbor Drive just outside the NASSCO Shipyard it would have taken me forever to get there.

Anyway I got there and went through security, got my paperwork, took my chair, and then we watched a movie about jury duty and a judge gave us a briefing.

We then listened as names were called and people had to go answer questions about thier apperwork and things like that. They finally got to a point where they started calling people over to the jury office to be assigned to court rooms. They were calling about 6 at a tme for awhile and then they called a huge group of 25. I figured that was for the long case.

All of a sudden my name was called and I was the only one called. That had me wondering so I wnet over and they gave me an envelope and sent me to a courtroom in the criminal court building. I gave them the envelope and they asked me to wait outside, then all of a sudden the 25 people called earlie showed up.

I staretd thinking, oh no, not another long case. I know my job supports it, but after the last time if I were to have to go for another long period I would be worried that they might have to let me go. I also figured I would get released right away due to the last trial after finding for the death penalty.

Anyway the baliff came out and called role and then invited us into the courtroom. The judge arrived and then she hit us with the news that we if selected would be sittiing on the criminal grand jury if selected. That one had me worried, as there would be no defense attorney’s to kick people off th jury.

She then started calling names and filled up the jury box and the alternates, then heard reaons why people couldn’t serve that long. I was lucky to have not been called and then as they started excusing folks and filling the seats, my name was still not called.

I was also worried about the questions being asked, like are you a US Citizen, are you a resident of San Diego and what do you do for a living. I could see if my name had been called I would probably have to serve but thankfully my name was not called. The judge swore in the people that had been called up and thanked and excused the rest of us, so I went down to the jury office and they said turn in you badge, that my service was completed.

That was awesome, and so I went ahead and caught the trolley back to my car. The ride back to the car was not that great. The trolley was pretty much empty but some street person decided to sit across from me and I think he was trying to scope me out to rob me or something since I was dressed nice for court and all. He started telling me his life story and ow he lost everything in the stock market and was having to live on the streets.

He asked me what I did for a living so I told him and then he said wow I must be well off. I told him I get by and then he asked me why I was riding the trolley. i told him that I didn’t want to have to mess with driving and parking downtown.

Anyway, keeping up my guard I was careful to not alert him to the fact that I was getting off at the station until the trolley came to a complete stop then I excused myself and quickly left. He didn’t follow so that was cool. I then got the mail and came home. I called work to see if they needed me to come in but no one was there. I had also called from the courthouse but also didn’t get an answer.
I figure by the time I eat lunch and get back to the schoolhouse it will be time to turn around and come right back home, so I guess I will just stay home.

I switched on the news and they are talking about how the stock market dropped big time today. That is not good news.

Anyway, that is about it for now. I am going to make something to eat and wait for Laila to wake up. Then it will b a night of unification wars.

So that all worked out and now I will not have to worry about jury duty until next year at this time.

Erskine Sentenced

For those of you who have been frequenting my blog over the past several months know, I served on the Jury that decided the sentencing phase of this trial. For those of you who are new to my blog you can read about my trial experiences by going back in my archives to the beginning of June. I really feel glad for the families of Charlie Keever and Jonathan Sellers. Once they inject this evil man they will feel much better. I have posted a few links to the various stations that have reported this here in San Diego, should you want to research what this man did and all of these links, link to previous news reports:

Man Sentenced To Die For Killing Boys

Death Ordered For Man Who Tortured, Killed Boys

Erskine sentenced to death for torture-murders of San Diego boys

Child Killer Sentenced to Death

I just wish they wouldn’t have let him plead out in the case of Renee Barker. If he were to face the death penalty there, he would disappear from this world much faster. I don’t think he will live long enough for the State of California to inject him.

Erskine gets sentenced today

Today Scott Erskine will get sentenced.

I wish I could attend but I have to work. Bummer. I would love to be in court when judge So says death. I will be blogging about this tonight and posting all of the links. For those of you that are new to my blog, I was on the Jury that gave this man the Death Penalty. If you want to read a day by day account of the trial go back to my June posts.

Like I said tonight I will post links.

Jury Duty Over

Well so much for my Federal Jury Duty. i called in tonight and found that I have officially been released. Well at least the guys at work are happy. I think they like having me around.

On another note, I will not be blogging this weekend as I have to go to Las Vegas. i was sitting around the house and heard this little sound of a slot machine calling my name. No really i have to give my youngest daughter away in marriage on Sunday and ma RWO decided we might as well make a short vacation of it. We won;t be coming back until late Monday night, so my blog will be a little quiet over the next couple of days.

After Judy gets married, she is marrying a sailor of course, they will be departing for Steve’s new duty station in Pautuxent River, Maryland. So I’ll be left with one offspring still living at home. Anyone want to adopt a 21 year old boy? Just joking. For family members visiting, they just made the decision, and Steve is on limited time, before having to report. I don’t know if they have managed to get the word out and if they did to whom.

Well I suppose that’s it for right now.

Jury Duty Again

Well today, I started my Jury Duty with the Federal Court system. Actually it was a better experience from the Superior Court Service i performed with the Erskine trial.

The jury lounge is a lot bigger, and nicer. We were assigned to a courtroom within half an hour, and though the morning session ran really late, the jury selection process was faster and I don’t feel that I had wasted as much of my time.

Well when we were called in we took our places and our oath. The case is the US vs 4 Columbian Nationals that were caught tring to sneak a boatload of cocaine into the US. As soon as I answered my round of questions I figured I was going to be tossed. I wasn’t wrong.

These guys were caught by the Coast Guard while they were doing Drug Interdiction Operations. Well doing questioning I had to volunteer that i had performed those types of operations while in the Navy. Strike 1.

Next was have you ever served on a jury trial? yes. Did your jury reach a decision? Yes. What type of case? Capitol Murder with minors as victims. What decision was reached? Death Penalty. Strikes 2 and 3.

So now I am still on call for another day this week if they need some folks. I have this feeling that the Erskine case was my first and last Jury case as I don’t think i would ever be kept on a jury by a defense team.

Would have been an interesting case, so I am kind of sorry I wasn’t chosen.

Scott Erskine will be sentenced tomorrow

As frequent visitors to my blog know I was on the jury that recommended the death penalty for Scott Erskine. Tomorrow he gets sentenced. I hope that I can get off work to go to the sentencing, but I have a feeling that won’t happen as we are in a crucial point of training for my students.

If I get a chance to go I will get down to the courthouse and report on it. If not I will post the local news stories with links.

Well upon checking the court schedule I have found that it’s not going to happen tomorrow. I’m still digging and will post when he is sentenced.

Deliberations and a verdict

After the defense finished up and the Judge read us our instructions and appointed a bailiff, off we went to the Jury Room. Our bailiff showed us how to use the call system and told us the rules he would follow if we had a break come up or anything like that. He then left and we only had about half an hour until the lunch break so we decided we would go ahead and pick a foreperson.

We asked who wanted to be the foreperson and a few hands went up so we decided to write down the names of the folks who raised their hand and put them in a paper bag. Someone then reached in the bag and we then had a foreperson. We also then went to lunch.

We returned from lunch at 1:30 and then the deliberations began. We had a couple of folks that wanted to hold a vote immediately, but others wanted to go through the checklist item by item. We did the item-by-item thing.

Pretty much everyone agreed on all line items but one, so we started talking about that one item. That one item was, did Erskine have brain damage or a mental problem that caused him to do what he did.

We did a around the table discussion with each person stating their opinion in turn. One of the younger guys on the jury had suffered from a concussion in the past and was hung up on Erskine’s failure of the smell test. Some or the other Jurors put that to rest by stating Erskine smoked like a chimney, which affects smell. Also when the loss of smell thing came out it was many years after the crime. Erskine appeared to be surprised by the results and said he didn’t have any trouble with his sense of smell. Also someone brought up that he was taking a medicine cabinet worth of drugs for all of his ailments.

One of the other young men thought that Erskine had mental problems as after the Rape of the girl that managed to land him the 70 year sentence he did weird things, like let her know his name, asked her out, and dropped her off down town. I happened to mention that during this particular crime he had been doing meth and drinking beer with the victim, and that may have been a reason for the odd behavior.

Also during this time one of the jurors had been putting up pictures of the boys, and they weren’t the nice ones. We then had one of the older ladies that also thought he might have a mental problem that caused loss of control, but several people brought up the fact that he never hurt his older sister, or the Navy woman. Also even though he had gotten physical with his girlfriend, as soon as she stood up to him and told him she was calling the police, he backed down and stopped the assault. All of these things demonstrated that he could exercise control when he wanted to.

We had taken a few mini breaks for folks to make head calls and all, and we were just finishing this line of deliberation when the bailiff knocked and said it was time for the afternoon break. We all decided to skip the break and continue. He seemed a bit surprised, said ok, and left.

We then decided to have our first vote. Before voting one of the guys got up and pointed to the crime scene photo’s and said, do we really want the man that did that to live to old age? We then voted. Some of the folks, mainly the women and one of the older men were in tears when saying death, but on the first vote it was 12-0 for the death penalty. It was only 3:15 in the afternoon. The foreman buzzed for the bailiff and a few expressed concerns that we did that way to fast. A few of us stated, that we all agreed there was only one item on the list to debate and that we had debated it.

We then started talking about a few things that went on in court. Folks started sharing different things they observed during the case, while we were waiting for the bailiff to come back. Also some of the folks were just gaining composure, from the vote. We shared things like Erskine’s behavior in the courtroom. Two of the people had only taken notes on Erskine’s behavior, and had notes like; he was laughing and joking with his attorneys whenever crime scene photos were shown. That he was making hand signals to his mother during her testimony, and that he was trying to intimidate the family members of the victims.

We also talked about one of the alternate jurors, who had been a little disruptive at times. He had this bag that he brought everyday. It had several zippers and he would continually play with the zippers on his bag, play with his water bottle, make comments, and play with his notebook. He was really annoying, in the courtroom and on the breaks. He was a subject matter expert on everything. The only problem was that he didn’t really know much about anything; so many people just tuned him out.

Finally the bailiff came back and we told him we had reached a verdict. He seemed a little surprised and told us to stand by and that he would come and get us when everyone got back to the courtroom. We continued to talk about stuff, like sidebars and objections. We passed around e-mail addresses and all. It kept getting later and later. We were used to getting out of court by 4:30 each day and 4:30 was rapidly approaching. There was some discussion about how we would probably have to come back the next day. I stated that if that were to happen they would have to sequester us for the night because they wouldn’t want the verdict to get out before it was announced in court.

It was right about 4:30 when we heard the knock on the door and were taken over to the courtroom. I was the first to enter as I sat in the back row, closest to the families. When the door to the courtroom opened there were camera’s everywhere and many more people in the courtroom than I was used to seeing. When I first came in I miscounted and sat in the wrong chair (smooth move), and rapidly corrected myself.

Once we were all in the courtroom the Judge asked the foreperson if we had reached a verdict and she said we had. She then handed the verdict sheets to the bailiff and they were read. When the Death Penalty was read the families let out a gasp of relief. Erskine showed no expression, just looked straight ahead. The prosecutor with tears in her eyes mouthed a thank you to us. We then each in turn had to say that we agreed with the verdict. I made sure I made my yes loud and clear.

The Judge then thanked us for our service, and let us know that our names and personal information would be sealed. He further stated that if these were to ever be unsealed the court would let us know in advance. He also said that we could now talk about the case.

We were then let back to the Jury room. The bailiff asked us if we wanted to walk the gauntlet, which meant talk to the families, prosecution, defense, and the press. A few folks expressed a desire to speak to the families but were told, you will have to meet with the press also if you do that, as it was an all or nothing situation. Everyone said no, everyone wanted to avoid the press after a high profile juror screw up the previous week. In the case of Richard Tuitt one of the jurors decided to talk to the press. He told them that the jury was hopelessly hung until he personally presented a piece of evidence, which turned the holdouts. The only problem was that it wasn’t a piece of evidence so now they may have to retry that case. No one wanted to have something like that happen to them.

The bailiff came back with a few buddies and said they were going to clear the way for us to get out of the courthouse without being hassled. We asked about how we were to check out of Jury service and he collected all of our Juror badges and said he would take care of it for us. After a few minutes he got the all clear and we were escorted by about 6 to 8 Sheriffs to a side door where they let us go back to our lives.

That was it, back to work the next day, to answer many questions. All in all, while I hated to have to sit on this case, I am glad of the outcome. I feel I looked at everything in a fair manner. The defense didn’t present anything to me that told me that he wasn’t at fault. If they would have, then I would have gone against death.

I saw an article in the paper a couple of days later, where the defense is going to challenge the verdict as being unconstitutional. He also had some unflattering remarks because we reached a verdict so fast. Sorry, but everything was very clear to us as the prosecutor laid out and presented a great case. Anyway that is pretty much how I saw the case and I guess in the future I may post some more things about it as things come up. I hope all you folks that have been following my posts enjoyed it.

Defense closing arguments

The defense started his case pretty much in the same way he started his opening arguments, that the evidence was pretty overwhelming and that the evidence proved he murdered the boys.

He then talked about the qualifications of the doctors he put on the stand and how, it was unfortunate that the prosecutor questioned the witnesses in the way she did. He said it was unfair that she demeaned the witnesses.

He then started talking about the jury instructions much in the same way the prosecutor did, and agreed with all of the prosecutor’s opinions except the part where he may have been suffering from a mental defect of damage.

He then talked about the accident and how the frontal lobe damage caused him to not have control over his actions. He went all through the testimony of the various doctors and then told us that advancements were being made as far as brain injury treatments. He said it would be unfortunate that possibly a treatment would be available someday that would cure Erskine of his brain injury, if he had already been put to death.

He then asked for sympathy and quoted from the Dalia Lama about showing mercy.

The next morning the other defense attorney gave her closing. It was more of the same, stressing the medical history, bad upbringing and more on the doctors. As I said yesterday I kept waiting for that smoking gun that I missed, but it never came up.

She rested and the judge gave us our instructions. It was basically those questions I posted yesterday. He also told us we would be awarding either the death penalty or life without parole and for death we would have to be unanimous. We were than assigned a bailiff and it was off to the jury room.

Tomorrow, deliberations.

Prosecution Closing Arguments

After a great 4-day Labor Day weekend we returned to court on Tuesday 1, June 2004 to the prosecution’s closing arguments. We were kind of excited and anxious as we knew the trial was winding down.

I need to tell you, that I took no notes during the closing arguments so this is going to be one of those, my best recollection things. As with the opening arguments, I took no notes as Judge So told us from the beginning that what the lawyers say carries no weight.

The prosecution started out by placing pictures of the boys up and talking about their lives. She told of them being happy and related some of the stuff the family members had said about the boys.

She then went into the timeline and the different witnesses that testified that they had seen the boys that Saturday morning. She then pulled out the crime scene photos and told us what he did, and was actually pointing at him saying he did this.

She then told us about how most of the doctors used the family’s input to diagnose his medical condition and highlighted the exaggerated testimony of his mother. She highlighted that the story of the accident when he was five years old kept getting bigger and more exaggerated over the years.

She brought up a letter that Erskine had sent to his mother from prison that I forgot to tell you about. Back when Momma Erskine was on the stand the prosecution introduced a letter written by Erskine to his mom. The prosecution had her read the letter into the record despite several objections and sidebars.

The letter mainly thanked his mom for sending him money and asked for more. There was something about he was aware she had moved and wanted the new address. He then said that if the death penalty was on the table he would plea bargain to get a reduced sentence. While I don’t remember if this was in the letter or something he had mentioned in the letter, he had stated he finally got caught. The prosecutor brought all of this up.

She covered the brutality of the crimes he committed and also highlighted that all of the doctors stated that he knew the difference between right and wrong. She talked about the credibility of some of the defenses witnesses, and the fact that they had nothing to present other than what they had in partial records from the past. She brought up that most of the witnesses testifying about the brain damage from the car accident had not reviewed the medical records and had taken the families word about what had happened.

She talked about how the murders and torture could be played back in his mind as materials he could masturbate to. This was brought out by one of the doctors during the trial and I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t write it down at the time, but it was brought up during the trial. She stated that he would have these fantasies to use as a sex toy the rest of his life. And she talked about how these fantasies were impacted by the prescription medicine Paxil and how he got it changed when it impacted his life in prison.

She then broke out what we would later learn was the Jury instructions. I may get a few of these out of sequence. I didn’t take notes when the judge gave them to us as we had a copy of them in the jury room so I didn’t take notes.

Well she went right down the list A through K. I’ll hit as many as I can remember.

A. The first one was, did he do it: Yes, undeniably as he was convicted by the previous jury.
B. Next, did he commit crimes he was not charged with: Yes, rape of his sister, Gun violations, pulling a gun on his brother, and domestic violence for just a few.
C. Did he commit crimes he was convicted of: Yes, rape he was serving time for, rape of 12 year old and sexual assault of the boy in Ramona.

The above were known as aggravated circumstances.

The rest were mitigating circumstances:

D. Did drugs or alcohol impair him? Only once, the rape he was serving time for.
E. Did he have a mental defect or injury? Not proven.
F. Did he know what he was doing was wrong? Yes, all doctors said he knew right from wrong.
G. Did someone force him to do it? No, he was alone.
H. Was the victim a willing participant? No way.
I. Was he mentally impaired? Not according to the doctors.
I don’t remember the other two, right now. But they were not even close, like was it an accident and stuff like that. The only ones in question were about mental impairment and this would come into play in the jury room as we went over the list.

Tomorrow, defense closing, which actually took, place the afternoon of the 1st and the morning of the 2nd.

The Last Witness

On the 27th of May we showed up 9AM as usual. And then we waited and waited and waited. We finally entered the courtroom at 10:50. This kind of stuff had happened frequently but never had we entered the courtroom so late. Usually this meant that the attorneys had a beef with one another. About the only thing that really bothered me about it was the judge’s assistant can down a couple of times and gave us like a ten minute standby and then would come back half an hour later and tell us 15 more minutes. It was really frustrating.

We finally got into the courtroom and the first thing we had was another stipulation. The court had ordered that Erskine be examined by a Psychiatrist. Erskine refused.

We then heard from the Psychiatrist. This guy had some great credentials. He had been involved in the John Hinckley case (the guy that shot Reagan) and had been involved in the uni-bomber case.

While Erskine did not allow him to examine him, the doctor was able to gather enough information to make a diagnosis from the various medical records that were available. This guy was awesome. He really seemed to know what he was talking about and really brought several things together. This guy ran a big investigation firm with several employees. He had an assistant that summarized all the records for him. The guy was ex Air Force and Ex FBI. He and his staff came up with four diagnoses for Erskine from an intensive record review.

The first diagnosis was that Erskine suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. This was something that had been testified about by some of the other doctors in the case. Of course that really didn’t have anything to do with why he may have murdered the boys.

The next diagnosis was Poly-substance abuse as he was abusing alcohol and drugs (methamphetamines) and this was definitely evident through past testimony.

Next we had Sexual Sadism and he went through several things that led him to that. The symptoms of this were:

• Bondage
• Captivity over 24 hours
• Domination
• Humiliation
• Beating
• Choking and strangulation
• Foreign object penetration
• Torture

Erskine did all of these things with the exception of captivity over 24 hours. There was a lot more to this one also. The sexual sadist has several coping strategies that he listed such as:

• Fantasy and masturbation
• Consenting partner
• Use of pornography
• Use of B and D services (I didn’t even know you could purchase this one)
• Prostitutes
• Exploitation
• Non-violent crime
• Violent crime (and he then listed the ones Erskine committed)
• 1976 Foreign object penetration and rape of his sister’s friend.
• 1978 Girl he assaulted in the drainage ditch (sequence or the rape was humiliating as he had her perform oral sex after anal sex)
• 1980 Rape of boy in Ramona (excessive brutality)
• 1981 Rape of the guy in jail (beaten and raped)
• 1993 Rape that resulted in the 70-year sentence (Bondage, foreign penetration and sequence again)
• 1993 Torture, rape, and murder of Jonathon Sellers. (Gagged and bound, brought the materials to the scene)
• 1993 Torture, rape, and murder of Charlie Keever. (Genital mutilation, foreign object penetration, tape residue indicated he had been gagged)

This was all devastating testimony as far as I was concerned.

The last diagnosis was Anti-Social Personality Disorder (conduct disorder). Some of the things that led him to this were:

• Onset of disorder before the age of 15
• 3 or more incidents after the age of 15
• Behavior not due to schizophrenia or and other mania
• Fighting
• Stealing
• Running away
• Lies about offenses
• Manipulative behavior
• Excuses for misconduct

He then went through and listed pretty much the same offenses above but added the Florida rape/murder and the attempted rape of the 27 year old.

He then stated that the medical book used for medical disorders DSM-IV-TR lists the conditions for medical disorders. There are only a few mental disorders listed. Normally with medical disorders a person experiences hallucinations, deliriums, or formal though disorder.

This Dr. stated flat out that Erskine had NO MENTAL DISORDER. He did state that later, after the heart operation and all of the drugs he took, that he may now have a mental disorder, but not when he committed the crimes.

He then listed evidence about Erskine’s mental state:

Followed the boys for more than 400 FT. (Demonstrated intention)
Took what he called the rape kit to the scene.

• 2 types of rope, tape and knife. (Planning)
• He hid the boy’s bicycles
• He gained control of both victims simultaneously
• Gagged the victims
• Victims were found nude from the waste down. (Humiliation)
• Ankles were bound with rope
• Wrists were bound
• Used a rope to suspend Jonathon from tree.

He then stated Erskine knew right from wrong and stated examples:

• Always denied crimes or minimized them
• Selected vulnerable victims
• Selected out of the way locations
• Took extra steps to control both boys
• Gagged and restrained both victims
• Killed both boys’. (No witnesses)
• Hid bicycles
• Denied involvement to doctors and police

The defense had earlier had a doctor testify that he was Erskine was judgment impaired. The doctor called this Volitional Impairment. This happens in cases of severe brain damage, epilepsy, and touretts syndrome. In the doctor’s opinion, neither a personality disorder, nor perihelia ever impairs control over actions of carrying out a rape or murder.

He then listed how Erskine exercised control:

• Erskine had a rape kit
• Followed the boys
• Took the rape kit to the scene
• Control of both boys, formed a plan and carried it out
• Restrained and gagged victims
• Variety of sexual acts
• Decision to kill

The doctor’s concluding remarks were awesome. His final statement was that Erskine knew what he did was wrong. He would not have committed the crime if a policeman were nearby. Basically Erskine was able to decide who, where and how.

The defense only had two questions for this witness. He asked the doctor how much money he gets per hour when working on a case and then asked how much the ex-FBI guy made. That was it, and my jaw just dropped.

Quote from my notes, “WTF was that. All he asked was how much they got paid!”

The Judge then told us that was the last witness and that we would have a four day labor day weekend before hearing closing arguments. All in all this guy brought it all together, and though I still had the closing arguments left to go I pretty much had my mind made up. But I was still waiting for the defense to give me something I may have missed, just some little fact I overlooked, to sway me. I actually felt sorry for the defense folks and was looking for a way to help them out. They put so much work into it.

Tomorrow I will blog about the prosecutions closing arguments.

Sorry for the late post tonight. I got tied up, (or maybe wanted to keep you in suspense), no really I got tied up.