The Trial: Day 5 (May 11)

Day 5

Well, the second week of the trial began with a surprising day, at least based on what I expected. The main testimony for today came from the coroner, and we got to witness the autopsy scene. At first, it was really sickening and wrenching to look at the photos. The stab wounds were remarkably large and thick, and it is icky-feeling to be looking at a dead person's naked body so clinically. But after a while (the coroner was there all afternoon, from 1 to 4), the testimony and process became less sickening and more...boring. I can't explain it, but the exactness of the descriptions, the lack of emotion on the coroners part (he's been doing this for ten years, and has close to 3,000 autopsies under his belt), and the length of the questioning and the testimony was enough to make me get bored with the whole thing. It's not that I don't care, but it just got dull arguing over the semantics of what kind of knife could cause these wounds, and whether or not an adrenaline rush could make one not feel the pain of someone stabbing them 172 times.

I did learn one thing today, however; I would never want to be a coroner. I just can't imagine how I would view humans, and especially the naked human body, after being a coroner for a long time. Since the coroner really was the whole day, and because there weren't any moments of incident or sparring among the lawyers today, this was a pretty straightforward day with not a lot more to say.

The day did end with the playing of a conversation between the two defendants while one was in jail, but I'll comment on that below. The only thing really to say about the phone call is that, yet again, there were major technical difficulties that forced us to delay the playing of the tape until the end of the day. Wackiness. Overall, an interesting day.


Random Notes

The court was running remarkably close to on time today. The morning took a while to start (we basically didn't start until 11), but after that, we started within fifteen minutes of when they said we would start every time. This is after a week of consistently starting closer to 25 minutes later than every call time.

I got to the courthouse early today, and went to get my parking ticket validated. Lo and behold, they had run out of validations, and by the time someone had arrived with more validations, I was in a rush and was able to make it to the court just in time. I am now completely uninspired to arrive even remotely early.

The coroner that testified today has done around 2,800 autopsies. Of all those autopsies, eighty of them have been stab wounds. That somehow seems remarkably low to me.

I picked up an annual report of the courthouses of LA. Our courthouse, the Airport Courthouse, dealt with close to 240,000 traffic violations last year. That somehow seems remarkably high to me.

That dreck they call coffee in the cafeteria? I followed the lead of the book Homicide by David Simon and put a ton of sugar in it. Worked like a charm. It basically tasted like sweet paint thinner instead of just plain old paint thinner, which is always better.

In one day, in two completely different conversations, one in the courthouse and one out of the courthouse, I heard for the first time about the law firm Jones Day. It's so bizarre when that happens.

Thanks to that phone conversation that was played at the end of the day, I heard the following phrases more times in one day than I had ever heard them in my life up until now: "What's up, my nig?" "I gotta get my chirp." "Huh? (said in a really obnoxious, slangy tone, more like "haah?")" and "The po-po's got it."

According to the detective that had monitored this conversation and others that we will likely hear tomorrow, there is absolutely no expectation of privacy in regards to phone calls made from prison. Also, in one of the best phone options I've ever heard, when you receive a collect call from someone in prison, you have the option of dialing 7 and blocking all calls from inmates.

In conversation today, I was talking with an older gentleman, Steve, on the jury about how I have never been in an accident or gotten a ticket of any kind while driving, and he asked how old I was. When I told him, he replied good-naturedly, "I've been getting speeding violations since before you were born!" One of the better lines I've heard in quite a while.