Posted by: Ed Chernoff
May 30, 2007
Topic: Business is Good, Memorial Park is Bad

The last jury trial the firm was involved in ended last week. It was in Belinda Hill's court. Bill and Matt both defended. The client was charged with Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. The jury hung up 8-4, favoring an acquittal. They just couldn't decide. The offer prior to trial was five years TDC.

Our client was a professional, with good friends, no record and burdened with the unfortunate decision to marry a woman with kids. After the mistrial, the prosecutor offered a five year deferred on an Indecency, with no jail time - substantially less onerous than the five years aggravated time she had dangled before trial. Our client, perhaps realizing he had stared prison in the face, decided to take it. And so the case ended in a whimper, rather than a roar.

Funny thing about the trial. The foreman of the jury had been on one of our jurys before. Bill and I tried an Aggravated Sexual Assault case in Judge Poe's court a few years ago. That jury hung up as well, and the case was eventually dismissed. The foreman of this jury was a member of that jury. When the question was asked in this case if anyone in the panel knew Bill or Matt, this potential juror reported that he recognized Matt as a lawyer in another case he had sat on as a juror. He added that he thought he recognized Bill as the other lawyer in that case. (This juror apparantly confused Matt with me, a fact that I personally believed pleased Matt to no end!)

We knew what had happened in the previous case, so naturally we didn't strike him. The prosecutor never asked him if his fellow jury members had reached a verdict, so armed only with presumptions, she allowed him to make the jury. Interviews after the trial showed him to be one of our strongest allies. What are the odds?

A little bit of an update on a previous post: Willie, no doubt disappointed in how I had handled his last gift of a live dove, deposited a dove with no head in my dining room this morning. If he could talk, I'm sure he would have said, "Here you go dumb-fuck, try and set this one free!"

Another interesting tidbit. i came in to work this morning at my usual time, 7:30am. Alan and Aggie were already in their seats. I went back to get some coffee, but none had been made. i asked Aggie for the info. Alan walked out of his office to join in the conversation. Aggie lamented that we had run out of coffee. Alan joined in her misery. He said, "I really needed some caffeine this morning! This was not a good day to run out. I wish there was some grocery store near by so that we could load up. God, I need coffee right now!" I looked at them with bleary eyes and shook my head in disbelief. I said nothing. I walked out the door of the office, went down one flight of stairs, pushed open the door to the building, made a right turn and after walking twenty feet down the sidewalk, entered the Starbucks that resided under my office. I ordered a grande red-eye and a pound of coffee. As I waited on my order, I strongly considered our hiring policy.

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