Friday, June 8, 2007

Well I got one this morning. My first real trial. It was an assault case where the defendant and his girlfriend/common-law wife were arguing. She apparently called a neighbor for help and the neighbor--my victim and complaining witness--went over to break things up. The defendant got even madder, knocked both the woman and my victim to the floor, then grabbed my victim's hand and bit him. And it wasn't just a nip--my victim needed sixteen stitches to close the wound. Predictably, the woman refused to press charges against her man (and showed up in court to support him) but my victim did press charges and here we were.
I started out by putting my victim on the stand to tell his story. He tried to relate what happened, but the defense attorney could tell that he was nervous and kept objecting, basically to rattle him and put him off his train of thought. But my guy managed to tell his story, and with a dogged sincerity that just rang of honesty and credibility. Then the defense attorney went after him and tried to get him to admit that he was a long-time alcoholic (which he was...just like the defendant) and tried to get him to agree that he was drunk at the time of the biting. But my guy stuck to his story and denied drinking on that day. The defense attorney couldn't get him to trip up because he was one of those relatively few civilian witnesses who was just telling the straight truth and he stuck with it. Finally he was allowed to step down, at which point he had a seizure and collapsed in the courtroom. Court staff got him into the anteroom to await EMS and the trial continued. The defendant took the stand and denied biting the victim. He also admitted that he was angry about the victim being in his apartment as he'd told his girlfriend that the defendant wasn't ever to be allowed in there. On cross-examination, I asked him why he didn't want the defendant and he got angry and exclaimed: "Because he's a homosexual and I hates homosexuals!"

The judge found my victim credible and the defendant guilty. The defendant stuck to his claims when the judge asked if he had anything to say and denied doing anything wrong at all--always a winning strategy with a judge who's just announced that he thinks you're guilty. I asked for a sentence of sixty days in jail and the judge gave him 120 instead, probably because of his refusal to accept responsibility and his remark about hating the victim because of his homosexuality. The defendant was led away by the court officers and his girlfriend began exclaiming that it wasn't fair.
I was able to tell my victim that he'd won, and congratulate him on his good job testifying before the ambulance crew took him away.