About a month ago I got a Jury Duty summons in the mail. How festive. Went to the appointed court on the appointed day, was nearly the last one called up and ended up on a murder trial. Gang drive-by kind of thing, 15yr old girl dead, the shooter only 20, unfortunately not that unusual here in sunny California, there are probably a half dozen a year in the rural county I live in. Right now my back fence is scribbled with gang graffiti, Hmmmm- actually until my "education" by trial I thought ssk stood for slip slip knit..... but I am digressing.
Most "regular" people don't run across gang problems other then the "tagging" of our fences. They mostly prey on each other. It is hard on the junior high and high school students around here though - lots of gang problems. Have to be careful not to send your kids to school with red or blue shirts.... digressing again, back to the trial.
Now that it is over I can talk about it. I now believe in a professional jury system. To expect 12 people with different degrees of education, background and experiences, to leave all their cultural influences at the door and understand the in and outs of the penal code and follow 76 pages of jury instructions is wishful thinking. It ended up a 9 to 3 hung jury - which equals mistrial and it should not have.
It was pretty clear what had happened - gang members or wannabe's yelled insults at another gang who just had to pull out a gun and shoot into the group of teenagers, actually had to flip a "u" and have someone else hold the stirring wheel of the car so he could do it.
I felt bad for everyone, the victims family, heck I even had sympathy for the defendant and his family, he has 2 very young children, just so many lives affected, destroyed, and the cycle goes on.....