« First tick | Main | Weddings »
Trial in Compton
By Ben | June 9, 2006
4 Days on a trial in Compton. The defendent was charged with soliciting another person for prostitution over a year and a half ago.
It was a sting operation, the guy solicited an undercover female sheriff deputy. Two sheriff eyewitnesses including the “decoy” testified that he was the one they arrested plus there was a poloroid photo of the defendent from the time they arrested him.
The defense was, “hey on the police report it says ‘T/T Back + R forearm CRIMINALS. But he doesn’t have a tattoo that says ‘CRIMINIALS’. And how can the deputies be sure that’s him? They arrested 20+ hispanic men that day and it was so long ago.” So because of that we were supposed to say “well I guess the photo and the eyewitnesses are wrong then.”
Two jurors would have let him off because “the photo didn’t quite look like him” and “he didn’t have that tattoo.” But I said “let’s look at each other’s driver’s license photos.” And then they realized “oh, old photos might look different!” Plus we couldn’t know what was meant by “CRIMINALS” since the other deputy who filled out that form didn’t testify.
So we found him guilty. He was mad. Dirty looks. Glad the judge let us out first.
Quite an intriguing experience socially & psychologically. It’s pretty disconcerting that the guy almost got off with so much evidence, such a silly defense and no alibi or other explanation for how his name got on the citation and why the photo looked just like him.
Topics: Uncategorized |