I really think it’s that simple. That or exnay on the ee4say and start taking Xanax before going to pick up my prescriptions from the CVS on Tennyson Parkway in Plano. It’s far less invasive, well for the employees at that CVS anyhow. I imagine it being me just really jacked up on Xanax and not caring a lick about how their pharmacist even graduated grade school.
In my head, I most closely compare that Xanax effect to the euphoric experience I had when I was in the hospital years ago, thinking I was dying. I truly thought my appendix had burst at the time and essentially beelined to the hospital. In the end, it was not appendicitis. I’ll spare you the details of what I was diagnosed with, but let me put it to you like this, I would have rather had a surgery to have the old appendix removed over what the real deal was. I’m still hanging out on the ass end of God’s little sense of humor; punchline Angela.
But while I was in the hospital, the pain was so horrifically unbearable that they eventually gave me an injection of Demerol. And my God! I floated about 7 feet off the bed. In that moment, I was fairly sure my shit still hurt, but the one thing I did know was that I could have given a shit less about that pain for the next 4-hours. The only thing I said was – I can see why people get addicted to this. That was the last narcotic pain killer the hospital would approve. It’s like dude, relax. I’m jacked up on a synthetic opioid. I thought I saw a rainbow colored elephant run backwards down the hall of the hospital singing It's a Small World Afterall (which true story I did think I saw it and talked about it according to my mom for the better part of an hour – I have limited recollection of that event). So does that mean you’re going to have me committed? Geez, unclench. It’s not like I had a tourniquet around my upper arm slapping the inside of my elbow looking for a good vein. I merely made an observation and the damn opiate you gave me disintegrated my ability to only think things like that – I had to say everything. I actually think the Demerol immobilized the part of your brain where you go through the process of thinking it to saying it. I was going straight to saying it. Shit. Sue me.
Anyhow, ideally that’s how I would like for my Xanax regimen to work. I take it, wait 30minutes for it to kick on in and then head over to the pharmacy. (That’s a really ironic sentence, now that I reread it.) By the time I get there, I wouldn’t physically be able to care about how stupid all these people are. Let me put it to you like this – the idea that I have to go to that pharmacy to pick up a prescription starts to piss me off hours before I actually go and pick them up.
I have a prescription for an ADD medication that I get every month. This drug falls into the Class-II Controlled Substance category.
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Classification of Controlled Drugs – Classes (also called Schedules)
Class-I: Substances presenting a high risk of abuse, posing a particularly, serious threat to public health which are of very little or no therapeutic value.
EX: Morphine, LSD, MDMA (Ecstasy), Mescaline (Peyote), Psilocybin (hallucinogenic), and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC; AKA active ingredient in cannabis).
Class-II: Substances presenting a risk of abuse, posing a serious threat to public health which are of low or moderate therapeutic value.
EX: Amphetamines and amphetamine-type stimulants – EX. Adderol, Ritalin, etc.
Class-III: Substances presenting a risk of abuse, posing a serious threat to public health which are of moderate or high therapeutic value.
EX: Barbiturates (sedative-hypnotic and analgesic properties) – EX. Amobarbital (“truth serum”), Buprenorphine (semi-synthetic opiate), Ketamine, Hydrocodone / Codeine, and Anabolic Steroids.
Class-IV: Substances presenting a risk of abuse, posing a minor threat to public health with a high therapeutic value.
EX: Tranquillizers, Analgesics, and some Narcotics – Diazepam (Valium), Lorazepam (Ativan), Phenobarbital (Luminal), Temazepam (Restoril) and Alprazolam (Xanax).
Class-V: Substances presenting a very low risk of abuse, posing a no threat to public health with an extremely high therapeutic value. Medications deemed non-habit forming by the FDA.
Class-VI: Over-the-counter medications needing no real FDA regulations. This has since changed with the manufacturing of Methamphetamine by using over-the-counter amphetamines (i.e. Sudafed). The FDA has made it illegal to purchase over-the-counter medications in mass-quantities by a federal program that monitors their sales in relation to a person specific.
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Now given that the prescription that I pick up monthly is highly regulated, there are several steps that have to be taken in order for the prescription to be valid – all the way down to the pharmacy level. The prescription has to be written on a specific and special type of prescription pad – one that is highly improbable of being forged. Not all doctors can prescribe CII narcotics. They are registered and supervised by the FDA and the doctors who are certified to prescribe CII narcotics are held to a higher standard of repercussion if they are found to be promoting the improper use of any CII narcotic prescribed. Once a prescription is written, it is only valid for 7 days from the date that the prescription is written. If you attempt to fill it on day 8, it will be rejected at the pharmacy-level and you will have to go back to the original prescribing doctor to request another prescription – which begins a whole different process of steps to rectify the prescription that is now invalid.
I say all that to say that you’d think that the pharmacy would be on heightened alert when filling a CII prescription. Well, not my CVS. I am prescribed a quantity of 60 15mg extended release capsules. The directions are to read as follows: Take 2 capsules every morning. This means that 60 capsules should last me exactly 30 days, right? Right. I take my prescription in to the pharmacy and wait an ungodly amount of time for them to fill it. When they call my name and I go up to retrieve my prescription I notice that my co-pay is $20 instead of the usual $10. I chalked it up to my insurance plan changing, paid it and went on my way.
Now it should be said that I don’t take my ADD meds every day. Sometimes, if I don’t need them on the weekends, I won’t take them or if I wake up later than 7am, the meds can keep me up at night so again, I won’t take them. My prescription for 30 days generally lasts me somewhere around 40 to 45 days.
The next month, I go in to the pharmacy to drop off that month’s prescription for my ADD meds. As the pharmacy tech types in the prescription, she says to me – Oh, it looks like this is a refill too soon on the insurance and they won’t cover it for another 15 days. Whhhat?! No way! I am well over the 30 days and actually I’m closer to 45 days since I last got this prescription filled. Why the hell won’t the insurance cover this for another 15 days? Something is wrong because I am almost out and I need this filled! While she flitters all over the pharmacy trying to figure out what happened asking me things like – has your insurance changed and did the dosing on this prescription change? I have one unified response to all her questions – NO.
It’s about 20minutes later that the tiny Asian pharmacist (AKA the future bane of my existence) comes up and says – Oh, I know what happened. Here I’ll fix it, no problem. Ok, finally… someone who knows what they are doing! Somewhere around 30minutes after that, they call me back to the pharmacy and my prescription is ready to go and it was run through and covered on insurance. Sweet! The girl goes to ring me up and the total comes to $10. It wasn’t until after I had paid for the meds that I stopped and was like wait… whhhat? Last month it cost me $20 – what the hell? It was in that exact moment that I realized what had happened to my prescription last month. Instead of typing into the system that the 60 capsules were good for 30 days, they had typed the directions in for 1 capsule a day meaning that 60 caps should have lasted me 60 days – THUS last month I was charged 2 co-pays by my insurance equaling $20. So I tell the girl that they over charged me last month and that I wanted this prescription for free since I paid double. She stands there and looks at me like she is about to hit the highest mode of crisis and doesn’t know what to do. So I lean over the counter and call over the pharmacist to resolve this. After I waited and stared at her for another 10minutes while she pretended not to hear me and acted super busy, she came over. It was at this point that my hatred for her was birthed.
She comes over and says – yes, how can I help you (like she’d never met me before)? I tell her the same thing I tell the girl who was ringing me up. The pharmacist looks at me like she has NO idea as to what I am talking about. This situation has officially pissed me off. A line of people has now formed behind me waiting for me to get done so they can get their prescriptions. The pharmacist acts like she is confused by what I am asking from her no matter how many ways I explain it. It got to the point that I demanded she pull the prescription from last month as well as a print out of what the directions were on the meds they gave me. This little demand is about to prove me right and make her look like an ass, given that she supposedly “knew exactly what was wrong and was fixing it”. This bitch knew exactly what I was talking about and the truth as to why she was acting so dumb was about to come out.
As the girl ringing me up heads back to find the hard-copy of my prescription, the pharmacist says – that won’t be necessary. AH! HA! Got you. She then says that they processed the prescription with the improper directions through the insurance company over 30days and they could not reverse the claim in the system. It was too late for them to correct the error via the insurance company. First of all, I worked in the pharmacy for 3years, so I knew what she was saying was complete bullshit. They could recover it, but they would have to go through a process in order to do so. This lazy bitch wasn’t going to give me back what I had overpaid; instead she wasn’t going to tell me what really happened and just have me pay for my prescription again. Ohhh, bullshit!
After bickering with her for another 10-15 minutes about how she WAS going to give me my $10 back with her telling me there was no possible way to do that – she tells me she won’t refund my prescription for that month but will put a $10 credit in the system for next month. Which again, I worked in the pharmacy and I knew the system wasn’t capable of that little offer she suggested but I was tired of arguing with her and accepted it. It’s not like I would forget about it anyhow.
Xanax: 1
Self-Control: 0
I’d gone into the pharmacy several times before I’d actually remember to request the $10 credit. I’d had it out with the same stupid pharmacist more than 3x; once when I had burned my hand and I asked her what was the best thing to put on it and she told me and I quote – there’s a whole aisle devoted to analgesics over there (and pointed to nowhere in particular). To which I responded with something like – well shit, a monkey could do your job if that’s what your graduate degree qualifies you to give as a recommendation. It was almost like when she saw me come in, she was immediately annoyed. Feeling’s mutual bitch.
Xanax: 4
Self-Control: 0
About the 4th time I was in there since they overcharged me, I was picking up a prescription and I told the girl ringing me up that I should have a $10 credit on my account that I would like to use it. She looks in the system and as predicted, there was nothing noted about my $10 over-pay. The freaking bitch of a pharmacist was there that day (it seems like SHE’S ALWAYS there) and the girl calls her over to ask about this “supposed” $10 credit I was saying I had on file. The pharmacist comes over and I swear to God looks at me like she has NO idea who I am and says – how can I help you? I tell her I want to collect on my $10 credit. She goes to the computer and looks in the system to turn around and say – I’m sorry, I don’t see anything in the system that says you should have a $10 credit.
Is this bitch for real? She knows exactly who I am and what I am talking about. I’m irate. I start to not-so-politely remind her how’d she’d screwed me over a couple months before and wasn’t even planning on telling me about it. She just stood there listening to me saying the occasional – I don’t know what you are talking about – bullshit; that was until I used the phrase – Insurance Fraud.
She immediately put up her hands shaking them from side-to-side saying something like – don’t worry about it… I will take care of this for you… I will do you a favor even though there’s no record of this being true. Like she had to get just one more dig in there before she did ME a favor.
So I responded with – doing ME a favor? Oh no, no, no princess. It is I who is doing YOU a favor by not reporting you to the FDA for insurance fraud among other things. YOU aren’t doing ME any favors. As a matter of fact wasn’t it you screwed up my prescription in the first place? THEN you lied to me about it? THEN you didn’t want to reimburse me for your error because you supposedly couldn’t get it back from the insurance company which PS sweetie, we both know you could have and were too lazy to do it – instead you would have rather screwed me over so you didn’t actually have to work. YOU do ME a favor? Laughable. I suggest you get me reimbursed immediately before I Google the FDA’s phone number while I am standing in front of your Pharmacists license number. What do you think about that? Who’s doing who a favor? (Which she was stunned with silence so I finished up with) – RIGHT, I’m doing YOU the favor and you’ll do well to remember that in the future.
Yeah, my prescription was free that day.
Xanax: 5
Self-Control: 0
The ridiculousness isn’t just reserved for the pharmacist. The staff is just as incompetent and could have only been trained by the ignorance that is their primary pharmacist whose general practice is NOT customer service.
First off, I’d like to say that following HIPPA regulations means verifying you are who you say you are so that your prescription isn’t sold improperly and so that unauthorized people aren’t picking things up that they aren’t supposed to be. This does not mean that the person ringing you up asks you if – 123 Street is your address. You are supposed to ask me for 3 forms of identification… birth date, address and the medication I am supposed to be picking up and I am supposed to answer you. On the rare occasion they even try to verify who you are, they never do it properly.
Xanax: 6
Self-Control: 0
Second, I can’t tell you how many times I have been sold the wrong prescription. You know, on the more common occurrences that they don’t verify who I am. Then they act like I was the one who was in the wrong for taking the damn prescription in the 1st place.
Xanax: 7
Self Control: 0
Third, the drive through is damn ridiculous. The clerks will allow someone to sit at the window for over an hour. Again, OVER AN HOUR. The thought of asking them to pull around or come inside since it’s something that will take more than a few minutes to fix has never once crossed the minds of these employees. This results in people backing out of the drive-thru line and going inside only to be met with a line of, on average, 8 people who most likely were at one point or another in line because they were sitting in the drive-thru for an unconscionable amount of time.
Xanax: 8
Self-Control: 0
One time a gal in front of me in line, who had originally been behind me in the drive-thru line, told me how pissed she was at what was going on. Naturally when she finally made it to the counter, there was a problem with her prescription – at the fault of the bitch pharmacist, of course. After she got her situation rectified and as she walked past me, she said – good luck. After I had been in the drive-thru for 45 minutes and waited inside for another 20, I gave my name to the clerk who rang me up and I was on my way out the door. As I was walking out, I saw the gal that was in front of me walking back in, looking more pissed off than before. She muttered something like stupid pharmacy STILL gave me the wrong thing as she walked with purpose back to the pharmacy. I shook my head thinking – well that figures. And before I got to my car, I thought – you know, I better check to see if my prescription is right. I slid my hand down the bag to be met with a prescription bottle. I wasn’t supposed to have a bottle; I was supposed to have a packet of pills. WTF?! I look down at the name and said Angela Williams. I look at prescription name and it’s not even something I get or would have on file there. I look at the address… Carrollton. Dude… they sold me the wrong prescription and she didn’t even ask me to verify who I am – no wonder I got the wrong thing! You have to be EFFIN kidding me. I turn right around, pass by the window with the gal I knew quite well by this point who was yelling at the pharmacist and went straight to the girl who rang me up. There was now a line of 12 people. I’m not kidding. 12. I counted. I demanded to go in front of them as I said loudly – SHE SOLD ME THE WRONG PRESCRIPTION.
She was flustered, but then found the correct prescription and checked me out immediately. I stopped by the pharmacist who was still being bitched out by the other gal and said – excuse me, but I want to make sure that you report this medication leaving the pharmacy improperly to HIPPA. I will be checking in with them to 1 report it myself and 2 make sure you did. I hope that you prioritize that as I am sure Angela Williams in Carrollton would not be too pleased to find out that one of her meds left the pharmacy improperly.
Xanax: 9
Self-Control: 0
I could honestly go on-and-on with example after example of how this place is like the 7th circle of hell. There isn’t one person that you will run into in line that is not seriously aggravated with this place. Believe me, I have stood in line there enough times that I have made friends and traded war stories with other patrons. It stresses me out. I think partially because I worked in a pharmacy and was a certified tech for 3 years. It’s not that damn difficult, but every time you go in there, they act like you guessed their name to be Rumpelstiltskin and are there to collect their 1st born.
I have often texted my friends from CVS talking about how I hope I never come in contact with C4 because I plan on leveling the damn place. Someone once suggested a sniper attack, but you know I’m not that good of a shot and I want to make sure and take them ALL down before I get caught. Well that or get on Xanax. I’m still on the fence.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
not where i started but ended where i started...
So, I’ve decided something. It’s big. Not many people would take to a blog to make a realization like the one I am about to share. Well except maybe kids who might just think it’s cool to brag about something like this. You know the ones... on Myspace or Facebook who rant and rave about all their illegal activities from the previous weekend right next to a picture of them taking a massive hit from a 4-foot gravity bong. Right there for the whole world to see. Like an idiot. I mean sure, probably just about everyone you know did something illegal when they were younger but as I have gotten older this is the theory I buy into…
Dude, don’t talk about the illegal shit you do and certainly don’t give the District Attorney photographic evidence to prosecute you at some point in the future.
Wait… wait… wait. It wasn’t growing up and maturing that taught me that – It was going to Catholic school my whole damn life. People say public schools are bad and overrun with all these issues of overpopulation, drugs, violence, gangs, poor education, sub-par teachers, etc. I wouldn’t really know firsthand about public schools as my parents wouldn’t allow their children to deign to darken the door of anything considered a public school until college and really at that point, does it even really matter?
So what I learned in Catholic school was this… there were far less kids in Catholic school – a lesser teacher-to-student ratio – which generally meant if you were doing anything out of the ordinary, you stood out. It’s hard to skip a class and have that overlooked by an overworked underpaid teacher when you are in a class of 15 or 20. You’re empty seat screams NOT HERE when attendance was called.
Catholic schools breed clever criminals.
Catholic schools speak money. If you have it, you can make the golden rules. If you don’t, basically don’t get caught. There’s no such thing as leniency for the underling peasants.
If you think for one red hot instant that there weren’t drugs ALL over the place at my high school (and grade school for that matter), I’d outright, to your face and possibly in an aggressive manner accuse YOU of smoking crack. Let’s be perfectly clear here. Private Catholic schools are regulated differently. They get funding from different places and they make the rules differently from anything state mandated.
We’d have “bomb threats”. All the kids knew what this meant. They didn’t happen every week or month or every other month for that matter. But they happened enough and the end result was always the same.
They carted all the kids outside to have them confined in one place – nowhere near your locker, your backpack, your purse – you get the idea. We were to move quickly and take nothing with us because shit, we might eat it today when this bullshit bomb goes off. When a “bomb threat” happened, the police came with their “bomb dogs” to secure the facility and search for this supposed “bomb”. Inevitably, no real bomb was ever found. Somewhere in the vicinity of 30minutes after the school was deemed safe, there was a list of kids that would be called down to the office. Yep. Oddly enough, it was all the potheads. Even odder, it was generally only the potheads who came from money or the ones that the school had been begging for a reason to get rid of them in the first place.
Drug raids under the guise of protecting me from being blown up.
Kids became exceptionally good at not being caught. And of course, it was a harsh lesson to learn for kids in their tender teen years – dude, never carry shit on your person or in your bags. Check. Lesson learned.
The bottom line really says that while the education might be a little better in a private Catholic school, kids are the same no matter what school they attend. At my high school, to raise money, they would auction off 3 of the best parking spots in the lot – right up front. They went to the highest bidders – aka families with indulged children and lots of money that didn’t have a better use. Needless to say, my family could afford the run of the mill parking pass to park on school property. In the fine print, however, it said that that could also mean if the gated parking lot was full (which it always was), you had to park on the public street behind the school. The neighborhood that my school was in is sketchy at best. Basically if you didn’t get to school early enough and you had to park on the pubic street running the risk of having your car broken into. I was familiar with such scenario.
When middle-class Angela went to complain about my car being broken into and demanding to know why it was that I had to pay for a parking pass to park on a public street the response from the Dean of Students was shitty at best.
He said, and I quote – We sell parking passes like any business. For example, airlines oversell seats on their planes all the time. The same concept applies here. Besides, the security guard (*who was a fat lazy old man with a chip on his shoulder*) drives down that street and keeps an eye on the cars.
Yeah, until he’s not back there or off being lazy and my car gets broken into, you ass. I didn’t exactly say that to him. I think I just stood there stunned by his own admission. You see, I was on a short list of people that they wanted kicked out. They were just waiting for me to fulfill the Williams/Athas tradition.
Back in the day, my mom attended the same high school I did. She was kicked out for raising her bra up the flag pole like the damn hippie she was. Her parents had money and she was subsequently let back into the school for an undisclosed amount. I’ve never confirmed they paid to get her back in, but the unspoken rules were exactly the same 15 years later. My brother was kicked out of my high school for essentially flicking some kids off. He was on probation from a fight that had happened earlier in the year and somehow my parents managed to keep him enrolled with the agreement that he was on a no-tolerance probation plan. At his junior ring ceremony, the kids he’d been in a fight with were nothing short of harassing him. He retorted with the old nonchalant head-scratch flick off. It’s personally one of my favorite moves. Not too dramatic of an event, except for the fact it was caught on film. Which, by the way, is funny now; it wasn’t then. Ok, I won’t lie – it’s always been funny to me. It’s just that now I can laugh about it with my parents without getting grounded.
Basically, my schools administration reminded me regularly that I was on a short leash.
Anyhow, these 3 prime parking spots were always won by the rich kids. They went for several thousand dollars and kids parked their way-too-expensive-for-a-16-year-old’s care right up front. One kid in particular, I remember vividly. His parents bought him one of the 3 prime spots. In the middle of the year, this kid showed up to a football game shit-canned drunk and got caught. Now, had it been me –expelled… non-negotiable. This kid gets this as a punishment… again, I repeat a PUNISHMENT that instead of being kicked out, put on probation or any other real punishment, he’d merely lose the privilege to park his car in the prime spot that his parents had purchased for him. You know where he had to park after that? On the public street behind the school.
Let’s recap. AS A PUNISHMENT, he had to now park his car where I had had to pay for a parking pass to the school to park there or risk being towed.
Oh and it should be noted that his parents didn’t get their money back for the spot and no it didn’t sit empty for the remainder of the year as a reminder of one his irresponsible behavior and two his parents having far too much loose money. No, no. They REAUCTIONED the spot off. They held a special event for the damn re-auctioning. There were several eager parents front and center ready to buy the damn thing. This is not a life I was ever familiar with. Several thousands of dollars were paid that year for a friggin parking spot. My mom’s theory was – walk, the fresh air will do you good OR after my car was broken into, she said – well that will teach you to leave things visible in your car on that street again. These events basically were building my character for later in life.
I call bullshit. It’s of the same mind as when the person who loses a game says – it doesn’t matter, I just play for fun. You never hear the winner saying that. It’s all about the win. So in essence, my parents neither had the money to fund an upfront parking spot nor would indulge me even if they did have the money. So no mom, it’s not about building character. That’s just the guise you chose to use to try and teach me the importance of making do with what you have and being happy with that fact. Blah, boring. I wanted an upfront parking spot. Conceptualizing the value of money was something that I learned 5 years later in college.
I honestly can come up with a million examples of how ridiculous private Catholic school was. In just remembering it, I might do a blog series on my high school years. But this whole rant was far from the original purpose of this blog. I would like to think my ADD medicine helps me focus and it did… just not on my original goal. But I was real focused on telling you what I told you. So, I’d call that a win.
I started this whole journey out by saying – So, I’ve decided something. It’s big. – And I don’t want to leave you hanging, but there will be a blog after this that goes into that story so that this one isn’t a 10-page long rant with no real purpose.
My big decision is as follows: I firmly believe that in order to save lives in the near future, I might need to start taking Xanax. I mean not dramatically or daily. The RX would read – Take 1-3 Xanax 4mg tablets 30minutes before you need to retrieve your monthly prescriptions from the CVS on Tennyson Road in Plano.
So we’re clear, I’m not a fan of taking medicine like Xanax for any kind of regular reason. The only dug I eat in mass quantities is Advil – which I happen to think that they should rename the Finger of God. Shit’s downright amazing. Period. End of story. And to further my point, about a year-and-a-half ago, I started to have breathing problems. I was short of breath, felt like I couldn’t ever really catch my breath and eventually resorted to yawing or making myself sneeze all the time to get that 2nd wind breath catch. I went to every doctor under the sun to figure out what was wrong with me. To make a long story short, my PCP tells me that it sounds like anxiety attacks. Screw that. I wasn’t anxious. He wanted me to start taking Xanax on a regular basis to calm it down. What about me says I’m not calm?! I refused the prescription. The last thing I need is a pill to fix everything.
One to get up.
One to go to bed.
One to calm down.
One to kill pain.
One to focus.
One to prevent pregnancy.
One to relieve allergies.
One so I can walk on my hurt feet.
The list could go on. There’s a pill for everything and the drug manufacturers and the doctors bought by those drug companies would have you believe that you need a cocktail consisting of one of each just to get through a day. I don’t buy into that at all. So, I’m only an advocate for taking exactly what I need and nothing more and I damn sure did not need Xanax. Which for the record, I ended up being right. The whole weird breathing thing was actually an allergic reaction to caffeine. I’m allergic to friggin caffeine! I’m the butt of yet another one of God’s cruel jokes. I’ve gotten used to this reality.
Xanax + CVS on Tennyson = not killing people. And let me tell you, I have considered black market C4 as to how I would take the whole operation down. I mean not literally. No one call the police or anything, but damn… I’m really just flabbergasted by the absolute incompetence of that place and in my daydreams, I see the thing leveled and it brings a smile to my face.
To be continued…
Dude, don’t talk about the illegal shit you do and certainly don’t give the District Attorney photographic evidence to prosecute you at some point in the future.
Wait… wait… wait. It wasn’t growing up and maturing that taught me that – It was going to Catholic school my whole damn life. People say public schools are bad and overrun with all these issues of overpopulation, drugs, violence, gangs, poor education, sub-par teachers, etc. I wouldn’t really know firsthand about public schools as my parents wouldn’t allow their children to deign to darken the door of anything considered a public school until college and really at that point, does it even really matter?
So what I learned in Catholic school was this… there were far less kids in Catholic school – a lesser teacher-to-student ratio – which generally meant if you were doing anything out of the ordinary, you stood out. It’s hard to skip a class and have that overlooked by an overworked underpaid teacher when you are in a class of 15 or 20. You’re empty seat screams NOT HERE when attendance was called.
Catholic schools breed clever criminals.
Catholic schools speak money. If you have it, you can make the golden rules. If you don’t, basically don’t get caught. There’s no such thing as leniency for the underling peasants.
If you think for one red hot instant that there weren’t drugs ALL over the place at my high school (and grade school for that matter), I’d outright, to your face and possibly in an aggressive manner accuse YOU of smoking crack. Let’s be perfectly clear here. Private Catholic schools are regulated differently. They get funding from different places and they make the rules differently from anything state mandated.
We’d have “bomb threats”. All the kids knew what this meant. They didn’t happen every week or month or every other month for that matter. But they happened enough and the end result was always the same.
They carted all the kids outside to have them confined in one place – nowhere near your locker, your backpack, your purse – you get the idea. We were to move quickly and take nothing with us because shit, we might eat it today when this bullshit bomb goes off. When a “bomb threat” happened, the police came with their “bomb dogs” to secure the facility and search for this supposed “bomb”. Inevitably, no real bomb was ever found. Somewhere in the vicinity of 30minutes after the school was deemed safe, there was a list of kids that would be called down to the office. Yep. Oddly enough, it was all the potheads. Even odder, it was generally only the potheads who came from money or the ones that the school had been begging for a reason to get rid of them in the first place.
Drug raids under the guise of protecting me from being blown up.
Kids became exceptionally good at not being caught. And of course, it was a harsh lesson to learn for kids in their tender teen years – dude, never carry shit on your person or in your bags. Check. Lesson learned.
The bottom line really says that while the education might be a little better in a private Catholic school, kids are the same no matter what school they attend. At my high school, to raise money, they would auction off 3 of the best parking spots in the lot – right up front. They went to the highest bidders – aka families with indulged children and lots of money that didn’t have a better use. Needless to say, my family could afford the run of the mill parking pass to park on school property. In the fine print, however, it said that that could also mean if the gated parking lot was full (which it always was), you had to park on the public street behind the school. The neighborhood that my school was in is sketchy at best. Basically if you didn’t get to school early enough and you had to park on the pubic street running the risk of having your car broken into. I was familiar with such scenario.
When middle-class Angela went to complain about my car being broken into and demanding to know why it was that I had to pay for a parking pass to park on a public street the response from the Dean of Students was shitty at best.
He said, and I quote – We sell parking passes like any business. For example, airlines oversell seats on their planes all the time. The same concept applies here. Besides, the security guard (*who was a fat lazy old man with a chip on his shoulder*) drives down that street and keeps an eye on the cars.
Yeah, until he’s not back there or off being lazy and my car gets broken into, you ass. I didn’t exactly say that to him. I think I just stood there stunned by his own admission. You see, I was on a short list of people that they wanted kicked out. They were just waiting for me to fulfill the Williams/Athas tradition.
Back in the day, my mom attended the same high school I did. She was kicked out for raising her bra up the flag pole like the damn hippie she was. Her parents had money and she was subsequently let back into the school for an undisclosed amount. I’ve never confirmed they paid to get her back in, but the unspoken rules were exactly the same 15 years later. My brother was kicked out of my high school for essentially flicking some kids off. He was on probation from a fight that had happened earlier in the year and somehow my parents managed to keep him enrolled with the agreement that he was on a no-tolerance probation plan. At his junior ring ceremony, the kids he’d been in a fight with were nothing short of harassing him. He retorted with the old nonchalant head-scratch flick off. It’s personally one of my favorite moves. Not too dramatic of an event, except for the fact it was caught on film. Which, by the way, is funny now; it wasn’t then. Ok, I won’t lie – it’s always been funny to me. It’s just that now I can laugh about it with my parents without getting grounded.
Basically, my schools administration reminded me regularly that I was on a short leash.
Anyhow, these 3 prime parking spots were always won by the rich kids. They went for several thousand dollars and kids parked their way-too-expensive-for-a-16-year-old’s care right up front. One kid in particular, I remember vividly. His parents bought him one of the 3 prime spots. In the middle of the year, this kid showed up to a football game shit-canned drunk and got caught. Now, had it been me –expelled… non-negotiable. This kid gets this as a punishment… again, I repeat a PUNISHMENT that instead of being kicked out, put on probation or any other real punishment, he’d merely lose the privilege to park his car in the prime spot that his parents had purchased for him. You know where he had to park after that? On the public street behind the school.
Let’s recap. AS A PUNISHMENT, he had to now park his car where I had had to pay for a parking pass to the school to park there or risk being towed.
Oh and it should be noted that his parents didn’t get their money back for the spot and no it didn’t sit empty for the remainder of the year as a reminder of one his irresponsible behavior and two his parents having far too much loose money. No, no. They REAUCTIONED the spot off. They held a special event for the damn re-auctioning. There were several eager parents front and center ready to buy the damn thing. This is not a life I was ever familiar with. Several thousands of dollars were paid that year for a friggin parking spot. My mom’s theory was – walk, the fresh air will do you good OR after my car was broken into, she said – well that will teach you to leave things visible in your car on that street again. These events basically were building my character for later in life.
I call bullshit. It’s of the same mind as when the person who loses a game says – it doesn’t matter, I just play for fun. You never hear the winner saying that. It’s all about the win. So in essence, my parents neither had the money to fund an upfront parking spot nor would indulge me even if they did have the money. So no mom, it’s not about building character. That’s just the guise you chose to use to try and teach me the importance of making do with what you have and being happy with that fact. Blah, boring. I wanted an upfront parking spot. Conceptualizing the value of money was something that I learned 5 years later in college.
I honestly can come up with a million examples of how ridiculous private Catholic school was. In just remembering it, I might do a blog series on my high school years. But this whole rant was far from the original purpose of this blog. I would like to think my ADD medicine helps me focus and it did… just not on my original goal. But I was real focused on telling you what I told you. So, I’d call that a win.
I started this whole journey out by saying – So, I’ve decided something. It’s big. – And I don’t want to leave you hanging, but there will be a blog after this that goes into that story so that this one isn’t a 10-page long rant with no real purpose.
My big decision is as follows: I firmly believe that in order to save lives in the near future, I might need to start taking Xanax. I mean not dramatically or daily. The RX would read – Take 1-3 Xanax 4mg tablets 30minutes before you need to retrieve your monthly prescriptions from the CVS on Tennyson Road in Plano.
So we’re clear, I’m not a fan of taking medicine like Xanax for any kind of regular reason. The only dug I eat in mass quantities is Advil – which I happen to think that they should rename the Finger of God. Shit’s downright amazing. Period. End of story. And to further my point, about a year-and-a-half ago, I started to have breathing problems. I was short of breath, felt like I couldn’t ever really catch my breath and eventually resorted to yawing or making myself sneeze all the time to get that 2nd wind breath catch. I went to every doctor under the sun to figure out what was wrong with me. To make a long story short, my PCP tells me that it sounds like anxiety attacks. Screw that. I wasn’t anxious. He wanted me to start taking Xanax on a regular basis to calm it down. What about me says I’m not calm?! I refused the prescription. The last thing I need is a pill to fix everything.
One to get up.
One to go to bed.
One to calm down.
One to kill pain.
One to focus.
One to prevent pregnancy.
One to relieve allergies.
One so I can walk on my hurt feet.
The list could go on. There’s a pill for everything and the drug manufacturers and the doctors bought by those drug companies would have you believe that you need a cocktail consisting of one of each just to get through a day. I don’t buy into that at all. So, I’m only an advocate for taking exactly what I need and nothing more and I damn sure did not need Xanax. Which for the record, I ended up being right. The whole weird breathing thing was actually an allergic reaction to caffeine. I’m allergic to friggin caffeine! I’m the butt of yet another one of God’s cruel jokes. I’ve gotten used to this reality.
Xanax + CVS on Tennyson = not killing people. And let me tell you, I have considered black market C4 as to how I would take the whole operation down. I mean not literally. No one call the police or anything, but damn… I’m really just flabbergasted by the absolute incompetence of that place and in my daydreams, I see the thing leveled and it brings a smile to my face.
To be continued…
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
just because...
it is not me who looks back through the mirror
but the vision of a person whom i don't recognize
a smile encroaches the deepest crevasses of a once frowned being
it is just you and me here now - in this quiet moment
there are no worldly distractions to veer from the reality of this now
you are quite possibly the portrait of the most beautiful image
the sight of something so real is daunting while oddly comforting
contradicting the smile follows tears in unison
perfect chaos upon one single face
its imperfection is in its own right - perfection
there is no sadness here, not between you and i
it is a marriage of a past and the decision you have made now
the perfect harmony of two swaying to the rhythm of the wind
holding tightly to the self while relinquishing opposition
it is just you and me here now - no one can see us
this is the moment where you and i are no more
the moment where the person standing in front of the mirror ceases
and you continue forward
you will find your footing in the footprints of a past
never lose who you are or where you came from
but i cannot follow as i will only become a burden on your journey
i started all of this but it is my time to bow out gracefully
there are things that were not done in the best of intention
there are mistakes that you will have to overcome
it is just you and me here now - but i am so very tired
i could say that i am sorry for every misstep that i have taken
but i would not want to deny that that is you
from my past you have been birthed
and because of me you will be better- for that i shed no tears
it is just you here now - the refection in the mirror
panic and confusion coupled with the prospect of true happiness
it is just me here now - i will be what i was meant to be
but the vision of a person whom i don't recognize
a smile encroaches the deepest crevasses of a once frowned being
it is just you and me here now - in this quiet moment
there are no worldly distractions to veer from the reality of this now
you are quite possibly the portrait of the most beautiful image
the sight of something so real is daunting while oddly comforting
contradicting the smile follows tears in unison
perfect chaos upon one single face
its imperfection is in its own right - perfection
there is no sadness here, not between you and i
it is a marriage of a past and the decision you have made now
the perfect harmony of two swaying to the rhythm of the wind
holding tightly to the self while relinquishing opposition
it is just you and me here now - no one can see us
this is the moment where you and i are no more
the moment where the person standing in front of the mirror ceases
and you continue forward
you will find your footing in the footprints of a past
never lose who you are or where you came from
but i cannot follow as i will only become a burden on your journey
i started all of this but it is my time to bow out gracefully
there are things that were not done in the best of intention
there are mistakes that you will have to overcome
it is just you and me here now - but i am so very tired
i could say that i am sorry for every misstep that i have taken
but i would not want to deny that that is you
from my past you have been birthed
and because of me you will be better- for that i shed no tears
it is just you here now - the refection in the mirror
panic and confusion coupled with the prospect of true happiness
it is just me here now - i will be what i was meant to be
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
it's unnatural...
Over the last 2 weeks, I have been on a serious donut kick. I can’t control myself. I think about getting them for breakfast the night before when I am crawling in bed and am still thinking about them when I wake up. It’s ridiculous – like some kind of forbidden relationship that I am obsessing over. So because of all this donut thinking, I have had them more over the last 2 weeks than I care to actually admit, but not enough for anyone to really call an intervention… yet. The time might be nearing.
Conveniently, there is a Dunkin Donuts on the corner of my apartment complex. Seems like a sign from God that these delectable donuts are truly walking distance from my apartment and I have to literally drive by the place to go to work – everyday. So even on the days that I haven’t stopped, I have driven past Dunkin Donuts slowly and whispered something like – tomorrow… I will have you tomorrow – as one single tear is shed. Ok it’s not that dramatic, but our bond – the donut and I – it’s deep and it’s real… at least for the last 2 weeks anyhow.
Like anything forbidden, once you do it long enough, you start getting sloppy. You aren’t as careful and figure if you have gotten away with it for this long, you’re in the clear and start leaning toward the side of carelessness. Like at first, I wouldn’t tell my coworkers how much I was going to Dunkin Donuts. I would put them in my purse and walk into work nonchalantly. I mean, I wasn’t prepared to run the risk of someone seeing the bag and asking if there was a spare donut in there. I imagined that I would have unleashed something like – NO AND MINDYOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS – as I hurried by making no eye contact. Then as I realized one day that the bag was half hanging out of my purse and no one even noticed it, or if they did, they definitely didn’t ask me to share. Well, if that’s the case, I’m not going to smash these guys in my purse any more and I began to carry them in, in hand. Again, no one even seemed phased.
After a while, I started to wonder why it was that no one was even asking about the donuts or asking to have one. So I found myself announcing the donuts – in morning meeting. I’d say something along the lines of – I was going to get you all some, but I just didn’t have time this morning. The reaction wasn’t what I was looking for, in the least. It was blasé even. *Humph. Friggin donuts are amazing. What’s wrong with you people?*
Next, I decided that instead of buying donuts for the whole office, I would only buy a couple spare ones. This created exclusivity – less donuts then there were people in the office. I would buy 4 donuts; 2 French Crullers and 2 Plain Glazed. Taking on 4 would be no huge feat for me to undertake should no one feel the need to join me in my new-found love of the donut I could handle it, confidently. This partially worked. I ended up just offering a couple of them out to people that I actually like in the office. It generally left me with 2 donuts – 1 Cruller and 1 Glazed. A yummy glazy manage a trios of debauchery. So wrong. So bad, yet so good.
So first, I encountered shame and hid my growing love of the donut. Second, I found myself wondering why it was that no one else was even remotely interested in how delicious these donuts really are. I outted myself. Some might call it a cry for help. I generally classify it under the – I’m going straight to hell for eating crap that’s not good for me and I must take someone with me. Whatever. Donuts are delicious. One can only resist their doughy temptation for a short period of time. Then you find yourself sitting next to me, eating a Cruller and talking about the wonder and awe that is such a simple pleasure.
So up until now, my sloppy behavior and carelessness was reserved to something that was directly correlated to me as well as justifying a blatantly obvious extremely unhealthy pattern. Eh, you only live once. Furthermore, I keep telling myself that this too shall pass. I went on a cake kick for about 3 months several months back. Eventually, one day I woke up and was like – I don’t want cake any more. And that was that. So, eventually I will be over the donut, but for now – The donut is good. The donut is wise.
Today, while of course buying my 2 French Crullers and 2 Glazed Donuts, I hit a new mark of carelessness. I felt I was owed something. I mean, I really understand the value and amazement of the donut. I’m above the law. Untouchable Sugar-high.
I’m actually late to work this morning. I knew I was going to be late when I woke up to my alarm at 8:50am. It’s set for 7am. It’s hard to say if I hit snooze 12x or if I straight slept through an hour and 50 minutes of that horrific beeping.
>>Which quick aside – waking up to a shrieking alarm is just human cruelty. I don’t like it. I am considering revolting against all things alarm related. Except maybe fire alarms. I don’t know, I haven’t put much thought into how my revolution will look or take place. It’s something I will think about… probably over donuts… tomorrow.<<
So it’s 8:50am and I’m late. I now have to make choices. Quickly. If I shower, will I have time to get donuts? What if I shower but just don’t wash my hair? I washed it yesterday. Yeah ponytail and quick shower. Done. Quickly. What to wear? Hmm… well, this tank top and slacks that are actually clean, but slightly on the short side are here. Yeah. This is good. I’ll just wear my jacket all day given that it’s 41 degrees outside and I really did just put on a tank-top without a second thought. Done. 8:57am, I’m walking out the door. I mean, I’m not looking like I would get hit on at any point today, but damnit, I would have my donuts.
9:00am I pull into Dunkin Donuts. What’s this? The only car in the lot besides mine is a cop car. Right there. Right in front of the donut shop. Well, you have to be kidding me. This is greatness. I must have a picture. This will be new for me. When I come into work today, not only will I have some donuts to share but also a funny picture of a cop car in front of the donut store. I called that a damn good start to an otherwise bad morning. I pull out the old iPhone and line it up as best as possible without getting out of my car and making it too obvious that I am taking a picture of this classic stereotype. Beyond that, I can’t see the cop IN the Dunkin Donuts store so I wasn’t entirely sure where he was. The last thing I would want would be for him to catch me out there looking like an ass taking a picture of that. Click. Got a good enough shot that people would know what the score was.
I’m giggling in my car to myself thinking… this is great. When out of the corner of my eye, I see movement in the cop car. It was actually a Police Tahoe, which we all know the cops driving those around are pretty serious dudes. Holy shit. The cop was actually in the car when I took the picture. Did he see me? Holy shit. Holy shit. Is he leaving or is he just getting here? I have no idea. I wasn’t surveying the scene when I pulled up. I friggin had donuts on the mind. That was it. No checking to see what was happening around me. Holy shit.
Which for the record, I’m not sure why I was freaking out so much. Looking back on it, it was like it was all coming crashing down. Here I am at Dunkin Donuts. I’ve been here before. He has to know I have. He’s seen me here before. Does he know about my obsession with donuts? Have my friends sent him? Is this the beginning of the end of my having donuts on a regular basis? I liked how I got over cake. One day they feelings were just gone. No police involvement. This is dramatic. I can’t take it. I need to get a donut and think this out.
I hop out of my car at the exact same moment that the police officer exits his Tahoe. Holy shit. Ok, it’s cool… be cool. I don’t make eye contact and slow my pace so that he won’t have to hold the door to let me in 1st. Once inside, I’m standing behind him and my thoughts are split between Crullers and I think he saw me. There were a couple of people in front of him in the line and it’s taking longer than usual to ring up a couple donuts and have people be on their way. The cop turns around to me, looks me right in the face and says – were you taking a picture of my Tahoe outside?
And in what I assume was the guiltiest look (one he’d seen many times interrogating a criminal of sorts) I said – What? No? Why would I be taking a picture of your Tahoe? I furrowed my brow so as to hopefully show confusion and slight agitation at the mere assumption. He says – Well you know, a cop car at the donut shop. I was here the other day and someone literally pulled out their camera and took a picture. I thought it was kinda funny. Now even though he has given me the opportunity to admit that I had blatantly taken this picture as he used an assuring tone to say he thought it was kinda funny, I was not even remotely going to back down from my original story.
I did the only thing I knew to do. I started my next statement something like this – Oh, no. I didn’t even notice your car there. Although that is funny and maybe I’ll have to snap a shot on my way out. He chuckled and turned around. But then I got to thinking that that really didn’t provide an answer for why I had my phone up, in the direction of his Tahoe and the Dunkin Donuts sign. I must keep talking. So I say to him as his back is turned and for all intents and purposes, he believed the conversation was over and that I was a liar – I was looking for reception. The iPhone has gotten really bad about getting reception and dropping calls. *Wtf? Why are you still talking?*
He turns around and says – yeah, I have heard that AT&T is bad about that… And before he could finish his sentence which was seeming going to be followed by a more inquisitive question to prove I lied, was still lying and planned on continuing to lie the cashier asked him if he was ready to order. Good Lord. I side step to the other cashier and order quickly. I know what I want. I’ve been here before. I’m even certain the cashier was on his way to the Crullers before I’d even ordered them. We knew each other. I pay quickly, grab my bag and head out the door. The cop was walking out behind me. I didn’t stop to take the obligatory picture of his Tahoe at the donut shop; I just hopped in my car and took off. I actually think I broke at least 3 laws getting out of that parking lot quickly. I briefly looked back in my mirror with full anticipation of seeing red and blue lights, but there were none and I bee-lined to work.
Crisis averted.
What’s really sad though, is when I got to work I ate 2 donuts, gave 2 away and began thinking about if tomorrow was too soon to go back to Dunkin Donuts. I think I will give it at least a day. You know, let things cool off. Hopefully by then, this donut obsession will have fallen by the cake-wayside obsession. I don’t know. I really love me some donuts. I think I have a problem.
*And if you look close enough, you can actually see the cop sitting in the car. Something I didn't notice until I put the picture on my computer. It's all pretty Angela-standard.*
Conveniently, there is a Dunkin Donuts on the corner of my apartment complex. Seems like a sign from God that these delectable donuts are truly walking distance from my apartment and I have to literally drive by the place to go to work – everyday. So even on the days that I haven’t stopped, I have driven past Dunkin Donuts slowly and whispered something like – tomorrow… I will have you tomorrow – as one single tear is shed. Ok it’s not that dramatic, but our bond – the donut and I – it’s deep and it’s real… at least for the last 2 weeks anyhow.
Like anything forbidden, once you do it long enough, you start getting sloppy. You aren’t as careful and figure if you have gotten away with it for this long, you’re in the clear and start leaning toward the side of carelessness. Like at first, I wouldn’t tell my coworkers how much I was going to Dunkin Donuts. I would put them in my purse and walk into work nonchalantly. I mean, I wasn’t prepared to run the risk of someone seeing the bag and asking if there was a spare donut in there. I imagined that I would have unleashed something like – NO AND MINDYOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS – as I hurried by making no eye contact. Then as I realized one day that the bag was half hanging out of my purse and no one even noticed it, or if they did, they definitely didn’t ask me to share. Well, if that’s the case, I’m not going to smash these guys in my purse any more and I began to carry them in, in hand. Again, no one even seemed phased.
After a while, I started to wonder why it was that no one was even asking about the donuts or asking to have one. So I found myself announcing the donuts – in morning meeting. I’d say something along the lines of – I was going to get you all some, but I just didn’t have time this morning. The reaction wasn’t what I was looking for, in the least. It was blasé even. *Humph. Friggin donuts are amazing. What’s wrong with you people?*
Next, I decided that instead of buying donuts for the whole office, I would only buy a couple spare ones. This created exclusivity – less donuts then there were people in the office. I would buy 4 donuts; 2 French Crullers and 2 Plain Glazed. Taking on 4 would be no huge feat for me to undertake should no one feel the need to join me in my new-found love of the donut I could handle it, confidently. This partially worked. I ended up just offering a couple of them out to people that I actually like in the office. It generally left me with 2 donuts – 1 Cruller and 1 Glazed. A yummy glazy manage a trios of debauchery. So wrong. So bad, yet so good.
So first, I encountered shame and hid my growing love of the donut. Second, I found myself wondering why it was that no one else was even remotely interested in how delicious these donuts really are. I outted myself. Some might call it a cry for help. I generally classify it under the – I’m going straight to hell for eating crap that’s not good for me and I must take someone with me. Whatever. Donuts are delicious. One can only resist their doughy temptation for a short period of time. Then you find yourself sitting next to me, eating a Cruller and talking about the wonder and awe that is such a simple pleasure.
So up until now, my sloppy behavior and carelessness was reserved to something that was directly correlated to me as well as justifying a blatantly obvious extremely unhealthy pattern. Eh, you only live once. Furthermore, I keep telling myself that this too shall pass. I went on a cake kick for about 3 months several months back. Eventually, one day I woke up and was like – I don’t want cake any more. And that was that. So, eventually I will be over the donut, but for now – The donut is good. The donut is wise.
Today, while of course buying my 2 French Crullers and 2 Glazed Donuts, I hit a new mark of carelessness. I felt I was owed something. I mean, I really understand the value and amazement of the donut. I’m above the law. Untouchable Sugar-high.
I’m actually late to work this morning. I knew I was going to be late when I woke up to my alarm at 8:50am. It’s set for 7am. It’s hard to say if I hit snooze 12x or if I straight slept through an hour and 50 minutes of that horrific beeping.
>>Which quick aside – waking up to a shrieking alarm is just human cruelty. I don’t like it. I am considering revolting against all things alarm related. Except maybe fire alarms. I don’t know, I haven’t put much thought into how my revolution will look or take place. It’s something I will think about… probably over donuts… tomorrow.<<
So it’s 8:50am and I’m late. I now have to make choices. Quickly. If I shower, will I have time to get donuts? What if I shower but just don’t wash my hair? I washed it yesterday. Yeah ponytail and quick shower. Done. Quickly. What to wear? Hmm… well, this tank top and slacks that are actually clean, but slightly on the short side are here. Yeah. This is good. I’ll just wear my jacket all day given that it’s 41 degrees outside and I really did just put on a tank-top without a second thought. Done. 8:57am, I’m walking out the door. I mean, I’m not looking like I would get hit on at any point today, but damnit, I would have my donuts.
9:00am I pull into Dunkin Donuts. What’s this? The only car in the lot besides mine is a cop car. Right there. Right in front of the donut shop. Well, you have to be kidding me. This is greatness. I must have a picture. This will be new for me. When I come into work today, not only will I have some donuts to share but also a funny picture of a cop car in front of the donut store. I called that a damn good start to an otherwise bad morning. I pull out the old iPhone and line it up as best as possible without getting out of my car and making it too obvious that I am taking a picture of this classic stereotype. Beyond that, I can’t see the cop IN the Dunkin Donuts store so I wasn’t entirely sure where he was. The last thing I would want would be for him to catch me out there looking like an ass taking a picture of that. Click. Got a good enough shot that people would know what the score was.
I’m giggling in my car to myself thinking… this is great. When out of the corner of my eye, I see movement in the cop car. It was actually a Police Tahoe, which we all know the cops driving those around are pretty serious dudes. Holy shit. The cop was actually in the car when I took the picture. Did he see me? Holy shit. Holy shit. Is he leaving or is he just getting here? I have no idea. I wasn’t surveying the scene when I pulled up. I friggin had donuts on the mind. That was it. No checking to see what was happening around me. Holy shit.
Which for the record, I’m not sure why I was freaking out so much. Looking back on it, it was like it was all coming crashing down. Here I am at Dunkin Donuts. I’ve been here before. He has to know I have. He’s seen me here before. Does he know about my obsession with donuts? Have my friends sent him? Is this the beginning of the end of my having donuts on a regular basis? I liked how I got over cake. One day they feelings were just gone. No police involvement. This is dramatic. I can’t take it. I need to get a donut and think this out.
I hop out of my car at the exact same moment that the police officer exits his Tahoe. Holy shit. Ok, it’s cool… be cool. I don’t make eye contact and slow my pace so that he won’t have to hold the door to let me in 1st. Once inside, I’m standing behind him and my thoughts are split between Crullers and I think he saw me. There were a couple of people in front of him in the line and it’s taking longer than usual to ring up a couple donuts and have people be on their way. The cop turns around to me, looks me right in the face and says – were you taking a picture of my Tahoe outside?
And in what I assume was the guiltiest look (one he’d seen many times interrogating a criminal of sorts) I said – What? No? Why would I be taking a picture of your Tahoe? I furrowed my brow so as to hopefully show confusion and slight agitation at the mere assumption. He says – Well you know, a cop car at the donut shop. I was here the other day and someone literally pulled out their camera and took a picture. I thought it was kinda funny. Now even though he has given me the opportunity to admit that I had blatantly taken this picture as he used an assuring tone to say he thought it was kinda funny, I was not even remotely going to back down from my original story.
I did the only thing I knew to do. I started my next statement something like this – Oh, no. I didn’t even notice your car there. Although that is funny and maybe I’ll have to snap a shot on my way out. He chuckled and turned around. But then I got to thinking that that really didn’t provide an answer for why I had my phone up, in the direction of his Tahoe and the Dunkin Donuts sign. I must keep talking. So I say to him as his back is turned and for all intents and purposes, he believed the conversation was over and that I was a liar – I was looking for reception. The iPhone has gotten really bad about getting reception and dropping calls. *Wtf? Why are you still talking?*
He turns around and says – yeah, I have heard that AT&T is bad about that… And before he could finish his sentence which was seeming going to be followed by a more inquisitive question to prove I lied, was still lying and planned on continuing to lie the cashier asked him if he was ready to order. Good Lord. I side step to the other cashier and order quickly. I know what I want. I’ve been here before. I’m even certain the cashier was on his way to the Crullers before I’d even ordered them. We knew each other. I pay quickly, grab my bag and head out the door. The cop was walking out behind me. I didn’t stop to take the obligatory picture of his Tahoe at the donut shop; I just hopped in my car and took off. I actually think I broke at least 3 laws getting out of that parking lot quickly. I briefly looked back in my mirror with full anticipation of seeing red and blue lights, but there were none and I bee-lined to work.
Crisis averted.
What’s really sad though, is when I got to work I ate 2 donuts, gave 2 away and began thinking about if tomorrow was too soon to go back to Dunkin Donuts. I think I will give it at least a day. You know, let things cool off. Hopefully by then, this donut obsession will have fallen by the cake-wayside obsession. I don’t know. I really love me some donuts. I think I have a problem.
*And if you look close enough, you can actually see the cop sitting in the car. Something I didn't notice until I put the picture on my computer. It's all pretty Angela-standard.*
Monday, February 15, 2010
i happen to find this more appalling than…
…when the Chinese folks lied about how old their gymnast competitors were in the Beijing Olympics. I mean, we half expected it from them… but Olympic Officials – really?! I mean this poor guy isn’t even in the ground yet and already they are looking for a way to say it’s somehow this luger’s error and not the ridiculous Luge they built in that kinda-country called Canada.
________________________________________________
Luger's Death Caused By "Human Error"
Friday's accidental death of Olympic luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was not caused by the track, according to Olympic officials.
The International Luge Federation and Olympic officials have stated the deadly accident was a result of "human error" because the Georgian luger, traveling almost 90 mph, was late coming out of the second to last turn and overcompensated for the timing error.
"This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem, he eventually lost control of the sled, resulting in the tragic accident," reads the statement.
________________________________________________
The officials have agreed to make a "change in the ice profile" and raise the wall that Kumaritashvili was catapulted over, but only "to avoid that such an extremely exceptional accident could occur again."
Ok, let’s start this rant where it feels most natural to me – the Olympics in general. Right now, the sole purpose of the Olympics is to gather from all corners of the world, the best athletes of their trade and have them compete to be called the world champion. Fine. Makes 100% sense to me. But it seems like as the Olympics evolve, they have become this thing of how completely ridiculous can we watch one person train to be?
I’m partial to the ice skaters – during the winter Olympics, which seems an appropriate point of reference given that Vancouver is currently hosting them. Back in the day, you’d watch the Nancy Kerrigan’s and Kristi Yamaguchi’s of the world skate to almost perfection. Triple Lutz, Double Axle, Camel Spins and the ever edge-of-your-seat Quadruple Lutz that it seemed no one landed. So it’s fair to say that even then, skaters were pushing the edge – finding a way to supersede their predecessor. An almost evolution of the sport, so-to-say. I agree that as people become more talented that the games should look for more challenge and pressure so that participating in the Olympics isn’t something just anyone can do.
But I will tell you what… it’s like they have sucked the viewer anticipation out of the whole thing. I watched ice skating last night for a little bit before I turned it off saying this is just ridiculous. It’s like when karate became an “art” and you get points for certain moves but in any street fight would get your damn ass kicked while pausing between hits to wait for a judge to mark your point (*clears throat – Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Segal*). That’s what ice skating has become – a point system that no speculator can even comprehend for one. Two, they have made the sport so complicated that it’s likely that you will see people fall in almost every skate. Granted, there are some that don’t but somehow even when those guys don’t fall, they come in 2nd or 3rd place to someone who did fall because they crossed their foot over two-times instead of once before jumping. Something complicated – or so I’m expected understand. How the hell do you watch the friggin games and know what the hell’s going on half the time? Furthermore, has the need to add more and create unnatural complexities really proved worth it in the end?
I’d say no. And beyond that, there has been the removal of really and truly waiting for the final scores to post because it’s just that close of a performance between gold and silver.
All that to say that it is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing to even allude to the notion that this Luger’s death was caused by human error. Are you kidding me? Ok, riddle me this…
1. I tried to Google how many Luge deaths there have been over the last 10 years. And you know what? It doesn’t even rank. While the sport is considered dangerous (and really rather pointless to me), people aren’t just flying off the track and dying every year at the Olympics in the Luge competition.
2. If it wasn’t somewhat the responsibility of the Olympics Officials and the construction of these apparatuses, why is it then that they almost immediately removed like what?! 100 yards of the Luge track. I’m sorry… they what? Right, removed an entire football field of track to make it safer. I definitely hear human error in that “slight track correction” the old Olympics Officials implemented. And what the hell? Why was there 100-more yards than usual in the first place?
3. By their own accord – The officials have agreed to make a "change in the ice profile" and raise the wall that Kumaritashvili was catapulted over, but only "to avoid that such an extremely exceptional accident could occur again." BUT ONLY are really the words that stick out there. Like we’re fixing it BUT ONLY because this dumbass couldn’t get control of the ice skate under his ass long enough to not jack him however many feet in the air at 90 miles an hour to his ultimate human error of a death. Really Olympic Officials? I get what you’re selling. I’m just not buying it.
I happen to find all of this just down right outrageous. This need to make it bigger, better, faster and break some kind of record has really gotten out of hand. Fine. This I actually get. Such is evolution. And we evolve. Fine. Fine. Fair. But it’s like when some shit like this happens, I want someone to just stop and be real for a minute. Like – whoa dude, we fucked up… hard-core. The intent was not for anyone to die here. The purpose was to watch someone do something we’d never seen before. That being said, ideally you try and compensate for as many things as you can anticipate going wrong in an infinite amount of situations. We sure as shit did NOT see this happening, obviously. Now that we know based on this horrific tragedy, we are doing all we can to make his family as whole as physically possible while taking the proper steps to scale back the track and make some additions to ensure the remaining lugers safety. Then they need to pay some undisclosed multi-million dollar settlement to this kids family. Friggin 21-years old… an Olympian… dead. And some official comes on to say it’s the fault of his human error. Bullshit. I call bullshit.
It’s damn appalling. End of story.
________________________________________________
Luger's Death Caused By "Human Error"
Friday's accidental death of Olympic luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was not caused by the track, according to Olympic officials.
The International Luge Federation and Olympic officials have stated the deadly accident was a result of "human error" because the Georgian luger, traveling almost 90 mph, was late coming out of the second to last turn and overcompensated for the timing error.
"This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem, he eventually lost control of the sled, resulting in the tragic accident," reads the statement.
________________________________________________
The officials have agreed to make a "change in the ice profile" and raise the wall that Kumaritashvili was catapulted over, but only "to avoid that such an extremely exceptional accident could occur again."
Ok, let’s start this rant where it feels most natural to me – the Olympics in general. Right now, the sole purpose of the Olympics is to gather from all corners of the world, the best athletes of their trade and have them compete to be called the world champion. Fine. Makes 100% sense to me. But it seems like as the Olympics evolve, they have become this thing of how completely ridiculous can we watch one person train to be?
I’m partial to the ice skaters – during the winter Olympics, which seems an appropriate point of reference given that Vancouver is currently hosting them. Back in the day, you’d watch the Nancy Kerrigan’s and Kristi Yamaguchi’s of the world skate to almost perfection. Triple Lutz, Double Axle, Camel Spins and the ever edge-of-your-seat Quadruple Lutz that it seemed no one landed. So it’s fair to say that even then, skaters were pushing the edge – finding a way to supersede their predecessor. An almost evolution of the sport, so-to-say. I agree that as people become more talented that the games should look for more challenge and pressure so that participating in the Olympics isn’t something just anyone can do.
But I will tell you what… it’s like they have sucked the viewer anticipation out of the whole thing. I watched ice skating last night for a little bit before I turned it off saying this is just ridiculous. It’s like when karate became an “art” and you get points for certain moves but in any street fight would get your damn ass kicked while pausing between hits to wait for a judge to mark your point (*clears throat – Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Segal*). That’s what ice skating has become – a point system that no speculator can even comprehend for one. Two, they have made the sport so complicated that it’s likely that you will see people fall in almost every skate. Granted, there are some that don’t but somehow even when those guys don’t fall, they come in 2nd or 3rd place to someone who did fall because they crossed their foot over two-times instead of once before jumping. Something complicated – or so I’m expected understand. How the hell do you watch the friggin games and know what the hell’s going on half the time? Furthermore, has the need to add more and create unnatural complexities really proved worth it in the end?
I’d say no. And beyond that, there has been the removal of really and truly waiting for the final scores to post because it’s just that close of a performance between gold and silver.
All that to say that it is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing to even allude to the notion that this Luger’s death was caused by human error. Are you kidding me? Ok, riddle me this…
1. I tried to Google how many Luge deaths there have been over the last 10 years. And you know what? It doesn’t even rank. While the sport is considered dangerous (and really rather pointless to me), people aren’t just flying off the track and dying every year at the Olympics in the Luge competition.
2. If it wasn’t somewhat the responsibility of the Olympics Officials and the construction of these apparatuses, why is it then that they almost immediately removed like what?! 100 yards of the Luge track. I’m sorry… they what? Right, removed an entire football field of track to make it safer. I definitely hear human error in that “slight track correction” the old Olympics Officials implemented. And what the hell? Why was there 100-more yards than usual in the first place?
3. By their own accord – The officials have agreed to make a "change in the ice profile" and raise the wall that Kumaritashvili was catapulted over, but only "to avoid that such an extremely exceptional accident could occur again." BUT ONLY are really the words that stick out there. Like we’re fixing it BUT ONLY because this dumbass couldn’t get control of the ice skate under his ass long enough to not jack him however many feet in the air at 90 miles an hour to his ultimate human error of a death. Really Olympic Officials? I get what you’re selling. I’m just not buying it.
I happen to find all of this just down right outrageous. This need to make it bigger, better, faster and break some kind of record has really gotten out of hand. Fine. This I actually get. Such is evolution. And we evolve. Fine. Fine. Fair. But it’s like when some shit like this happens, I want someone to just stop and be real for a minute. Like – whoa dude, we fucked up… hard-core. The intent was not for anyone to die here. The purpose was to watch someone do something we’d never seen before. That being said, ideally you try and compensate for as many things as you can anticipate going wrong in an infinite amount of situations. We sure as shit did NOT see this happening, obviously. Now that we know based on this horrific tragedy, we are doing all we can to make his family as whole as physically possible while taking the proper steps to scale back the track and make some additions to ensure the remaining lugers safety. Then they need to pay some undisclosed multi-million dollar settlement to this kids family. Friggin 21-years old… an Olympian… dead. And some official comes on to say it’s the fault of his human error. Bullshit. I call bullshit.
It’s damn appalling. End of story.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
12 people, one unified decision (maybe)…
Before the judge dismissed the jury, he released the 13th Juror – the alternate. The trial was over and there would be no need for her to participate in the sentencing deliberation.
As soon as the 12 jurors retired to the deliberation room, we were instructed to select a foreman. This was odd to me, as the foreman should have been decided upon the day before when the original 12 were selected, however it did not happen that way.
As soon as the bailiff closed the door to the room, all 11 fingers pointed at me. Yeah, no shit… I’m always the foreman. Fine. Whatever, let’s do this shit and get out of here – was my only thought.
Before we did anything else, I asked that we go around the room and allow each person to say their thoughts and what they felt the punishment should be. Our sentencing limitations were as follows – we could give no less than 180days and no more than 2years. We could also decide if we felt like a monetary fine was appropriate. If we decided to fine the defendant, we’d have to agree upon that amount as well.
The first guy to vote was a gay guy. There’s no significance to the fact that he was gay other than the fact that he announced that he was and was a strong liberal before he even gave his opinion. It was his stance that the defendant be given no fine and thought that for the offense of stealing less than $100 in groceries the sentence should not be over the 180days.
The next 8 people voted the max sentence of 2years or 24months and no fine. I think we all agreed that a fine was pointless. The state would never see a dime from this guy anyhow. Thinking back on it, I wish we would have been open to a fine. Maybe if they guy refused to pay or could not pay it, there would be more severe repercussions in the future. Hindsight…
The 9th person to vote was one of the 4 women on the jury. She was of the same mind as the 1st juror. This is only $100 and she would not agree to sentence him to the max. She was extremely defensive about her decision saying that she refused to say 2years because that’s what everyone else thought. I said – That’s fine. You don’t have to agree with everyone else. You are entitled to your opinion just as the rest of us have been. She then wanted to argue her side in extreme detail. I, as the foreman, cut her off to give the remaining 2 jurors the chance to voice their opinions before we went full force in finding a middle ground on the punishment.
The remaining 2 jurors fell in line with the middle 8 – 2years and no monetary fine.
What I thought would be open and shut was about to turn into a damn zoo. The first guy who opposed the max sentence originally said that he’d be comfortable with the max sentence as long as there was no fine attached to the sentence. All but one of us agreed that that was a fair sentencing – the defensive chick, of course. It seemed a little too easy to get the gay guy to flip on his original opinion which drenched in extreme passion to only sentence this guy to 180days. It ended up that the changing of his mind so quickly was in fact easier then it seemed. He flip-flopped back and forth on his stance and suggestions as to a sentencing compromise. His back and forth closely aligned with the woman who held the only other opposing view of the max sentence.
Ok… this was going nowhere and quick. Aside from that, there was another juror, a male, who was resistant to anything under 2years/max sentence. It became clear quickly that if we didn’t find a middle ground acceptable to all, we’d hang this jury, there’d be a mistrial and this would have to start all over again. Another jury selection. Another plea. Another day spent on something so blatantly obvious to me and 10 other jurors. I decided to make things a little more real for these 2 and more specifically, the opposing woman. The gay guy flip-flopped so much that if I figured if I could get the woman on board, he’d follow in tow – I was almost positive of that fact.
I say to her – Is it the amount of money that is a problem for you to sentence this guy to the max jail time?
She says – Yes, it’s $100. I cannot justify sending someone to jail for 2years for just $100 in groceries from Fiesta.
Me – It’s not about it JUST being $100. Let me ask you something. Let’s say this defendant stole $100 from your bank account directly. And let’s say that his stealing your $100 caused all the checks you’d just written for bills and such to bounce. Would it feel like JUST $100 then?
She didn’t respond, instead she stared at me. She knew there was no logical thing to say in that moment that defended her stance.
Me – Furthermore, you are almost saying that to steal $100 from someone else is not that big of a deal and holds no significant importance. So is it your position that $100 isn’t a large enough amount to punish someone to the fullest? Let me put it like this… let’s say there are 1,000 people who stole $100. Now you are talking about $10,000. Would it be easier for you to sentence someone to 2years if they’d stolen $10,000? Because essentially, you are saying that $100 stolen by one person isn’t really worthy of being considered a real crime. And I might agree with you on a smaller scale. I’m looking at the bigger picture. I happen to feel like your stance sets the precedence of leniency on the worth of what was stolen and not on the basic underlying fact that no matter how much or how small it is that is taken, it’s still against the law. I would be less inclined to punish this defendant to the fullest had this been his first offense. We’re talking about 7 known theft offenses in Texas, one in Georgia and 1 from when he was 16years old. It’s not just about the $100 here. Furthermore, let’s say he stole $100 every offense in Texas. That makes $700 total. And 1 step further, we only know of the 7 other previous cases that he was caught on. This does not account for the times he’s gotten away with stealing something. Which that is an unknown and a guess and not fair to use that as a discriminating factor in this particular case, but the thought really drives home the severity of this case. Does that make sense?
She says – I just think that 2years is too severe. I can’t bring myself to give him 2years for $100.
Me – It’s my general feeling that this guy knows exactly what he’s doing. Let’s go back to jury selection. I wondered why the defendant was present for it at all. Did anyone else notice the defendant’s demeanor during the jury selection?
A couple people chimed in with – yeah, it was really odd. He had his head hung low and was giving off the feeling of embarrassment, remorse, shame…
Me – Guilt? And let me say that I was not biased against this man because of his demeanor during jury selection. I just found it odd. I always listen to all the facts and make a decision on the basis of the facts in relation to how a person is behaving – not solely on one or the other. That being said, my initial feeling of his demeanor being one of guilt was confirmed this morning when he changed his plea to guilty. I can’t help but think that the jury selection, the defense attorney’s specific jury selection questions, and the fact his attorney never once told him to sit up and be more attentive was all a plan to get the jury to first feel badly for the guy before he even spoke in his own defense and second to belittle the severity of the charged offense. Like a smoke screen, almost.
There were several other jurors that had felt the same way as I had. However, the 1st juror was now getting a little out of control with his reasoning.
He says – why put him in for 2year and waste the tax payer’s dollars? Furthermore, he’s just going to get out and do it again, so what’s the point?
Me – Well for starters, you’re paying the same amount of taxes whether we put this guy in jail for an hour or 10years – so that line of reasoning is rather inconsequential to determining his sentence for this particular offense. That’s one. Two, you have no idea what this guy will do when he gets out of jail this time. It is not your responsibility to pull out a crystal ball and tell the future. It is however, your responsibility to take into account all his acknowledged past charges and guilty verdicts for theft and make a decision of how to sentence THIS offense. No future offense has happened yet. Furthermore, what’s to say he goes to jail this time and has his moment – the moment where he does want to be better and change and then does and never steals anything ever again. I could argue that the longer time we give him in jail, the more time he has to have that moment in time.
Someone else chimed in – and we know in jail he can get the education on computers that he desperately wants, or at least made it seem like he wanted. He can also get cancer treatment for free – well on the tax payer’s dollars. He admittedly hasn’t done that yet because he didn’t have the time, money or resources to do so.
>I’m not sure who said this but it made all us laugh… After the juror said – He admittedly hasn’t done that yet because he didn’t have the time, money or resources to do so. *And you can’t steal a bag of chemo…*
He could reap all those benefits while spending more time in jail, should he choose to be better and make a change.
Me – And really, let’s think about it like this. When I was young and I would get punished for bad behavior, I would get spanked. As I got older and reached the driving age, spanking me would be a fleeting punishment. I’d rather get the snot spanked out of me than lose my driving privileges. The same concept applies here. This guy has had probation – which he could not even successfully complete without being arrested for another theft charge. He has successfully convinced every jury and judge up until this point that he has learned his lesson and wants to be a contributing member of society to the point that he has never been sentenced to anything more than the minimum. Now, how’s that minimum sentence working out? Because to me, it’s like spanking a 16year old and then letting them go drive and hang out with their friends – AKA not doing a damn thing. Something has to change and what we can change is the punishment.
The female juror that was opposed to max sentence says – I agree that something has to change; I just don’t think 2years is the answer.
Me – Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. What do you suggest if not 2years?
Her – Oh, I don’t know. Just not 2years.
I’m like great. This is like everyone else in the world. Bitch about the problems in the world and drag everyone down and never see a problem and offer a solution. What a damn beating. I’ve already talked about this for an hour longer then I even thought we’d have to.
So this brilliant guy says – let’s take the average of what all the jurors want to sentence and go with that number.
Me – Ok, let’s see what that comes out to.
And somehow, the number came out to 22months. Which, I was positive that the opposing woman wasn’t going to agree to, given that that’s only 2months shy of 2years. Sigh.
Then it dawned on me. This guy’s been sitting in jail since July 1st 2009. That’s just about 6months/180days to the date. So I mention that to the jury and then follow that up with – I wonder if that is considered time served? There’s a slight buzz in the room at the revelation. I send a note to the judge to ask if that’s the case. I then try to rationalize that he only had to complete another 14months to hit a 2year sentence. I asked her if she’d be more comfortable sentencing him to 2years knowing he’d already served 6months? She said she wouldn’t. Shit.
I then had a thought that I spoke out before I even really crafted it into a complete sentences – that’s awfully damn convenient that the defense is asking us to take mercy on this guy and give him the minimum sentence which would have this guy out of jail before Christmas. It almost sounds like they are working the system. This guy might be unintelligent, but I do believe he has become a true master at his craft and we know it’s not being a good thief. It’s impressive really. That all that fancy footwork has played into 2 people out of 12 feeling sympathy towards an admitted repeat offender who said in open court he knew what his other options were outside of stealing and just, plain and simple, had zero desire utilize those options. That he thought he could get away with stealing from Fiesta and it was only when he was caught and knew he was in serious trouble that he felt any sense of quote/unquote – remorse. He was only sorry when he was caught and knew that his jury luck and sympathy vote is wearing thin. Man… this guy. Impressive.
After a few people try and convince the one opposing woman that she was wrong, I realized that there had to be something that made sense to her to bring her to the consensus of the majority of the other jurors. It was in that moment that another juror said flippantly – it’s not like he is going to serve all 24months. They never do. At least by sentencing him to 24months, we know he will stay in longer than he has previously, and really I think that everyone agrees that that is the ultimate objective here.
That sparks speculation of how long he would actually have to serve. Once the idea was planted, you could see that the one opposing woman was wavering from her unrelenting opposition.
The guy who had run the math and come up with 22months speaks up again driving home that the average of what everyone wanted was less than 2years which should satisfy everyone. We were still waiting for the response back from the judge on whether the time the guy had already spent in jail would be considered as time served when the gay guy says – ok, I will agree to 22months and no monetary fee. He looked at the opposing woman and she said, out of nowhere – You know, I can live with that. What the hell? Did we really just come to a decision?! Too easy? Maybe not!
To which I immediately jump in and say, can we all agree to that? As everyone is nodding in agreement, I follow that up with – So no matter what response comes back from the judge on time served, we are all saying we agree to 22months and no fine, right?
Everyone again nods. Holy shit… the impossible has just happened.
I grabbed the foreman paper and quickly wrote in the appropriate slots – 22months and zero monetary fine. I sign it – illegibly of course – and just as the bailiff returns with the answer to our question about time served and before I can even read it, I shove the paper into his hand and say – we’ve made a decision. Although we’d all agreed that no matter what the answer was to time served, we would not change our sentencing verdict, but I would be damned if I was running the risk of having to spend a minute longer with these people.
As the bailiff disappeared, the room wanted to know what the response was to time served. As I folded the paper in half, without looking at it, I said it’s really rather irrelevant to anything at this point anyhow, so why bother to know? And let me tell you, that statement as simple and innocent as I thought it was damn near started WWIII in that tiny room. The one original opposing woman and the gay guy just about came unglued insisting on knowing what it said. Ah hell… I hope this isn’t going to cause some dramatic backlash…
So I open it, on the sole premise of self preservation given that the woman and gay guy were starting to obviously doubt their decision of the 22month sentence and I thought I might get jumped in the parking lot if I didn’t read it, I read it.
Those 6months were considered time served. I was right. That revelation really only confirmed that this guy was pretty damn brilliant at working the system. He really would have been out before Christmas. There was some discussion about how he should have had been given the max sentence and opposition from the 2 really starting to show signs that they were manhandled in that jury room by a select few people to push them to side with the majority. Ha… I enjoyed that, slightly. Ok let’s be real… a lot!
They call us back to the jury box and we all file in, except I now sit in jury chair one, indicating that I was the foreman. The states attorney looked at me and cracked a smirk so as to say he was not in the least bit shocked that I was selected as the foreman. The sentencing paper was passed back to me and I read the verdict. The judge then asked each juror, one-by-one, if this was their sentencing verdict. I really thought that when it got to the one woman, she would have something more to contribute to her response besides, yes. She didn’t. Thank God. We were then dismissed back to the jury room to be debriefed and to chat with the states attorney and judge if we so chose to. As the foreman, the judge generally wants to speak with the foreman after the trial so I hung around for a bit after they thanked us for our service and excused the jurors.
The judge comes in and as suspected, wanted to chat with me. He had some really funny things to say about this guy and that he thought we made the best decision we could. He was pretty flabbergasted that we were able to come to an agreed 22month sentence with 2 strongly opposed jurors. It was at that point that I noticed that the gay guy had hung around to chat with the states attorney.
And here’s where it gets a little more interesting…
The states attorney comes in and starts telling us all the stuff he couldn’t say during the trial. For instance, the state knew of over 15 guilty theft convictions for this guy in the state of Texas alone. They couldn’t present all of those during the trial due to some kind of evidence chain. Each piece of evidence has to be approved and submitted. If it does not go through that process, even though those guilty offenses are known and on record, they cannot offer those to the jury in any capacity. The exception on that is if the defendant speaks about other offenses on the stand, ones that weren’t entered into evidence for whatever reason can then be probed and investigated further. Like in this trial, when the states attorney asked the defendant if he’d had charges in other states for theft, he admitted to one – the one in Georgia. Once he admitted to that, the states attorney could ask him more in-depth as to that case without the risk of being objected. The states attorney said he was shocked the defendant admitted to that at all as he didn’t have to. I chuckled… not so smart are ya?
As the states attorney is telling us that he was extremely pleased with the sentencing verdict, it most likely won’t matter. In the matter of theft, there is no sliding scale as to increased punishment for repeat offenders. The max this guy could ever really get is 2years. Which, when you think about it, is kinda bullshit given that this sentencing has done jack to “rehabilitate” this guy. The states attorney said – hopefully he’ll do something more dramatic to include drugs or a weapon in the future so that they press deeper charges. And to that, I laughed hard – the kind of uncontrollable laugh where you didn’t expect it and then there you are… in tears.
It’s like – Wait what? You want him to put a weapon to someone or steal drugs so the state can REALLY punish him? Laugh out loud. How damn backwards is that? I liked it.
Then the states attorney tells us why they even went to jury selection in the first place. And this was a doosey. It wasn’t until the day of trial that the state knew for a fact that their one witness to the whole crime and essentially their entire case that he’d show up to testify. When the crime happened, this guy worked for Fiesta. Once they were pushed into trial, he’d been transferred to a subsidiary company within Fiesta. It took the state a bit to track him down and have him commit to showing up for trial.
Now, that being said, if that witness for the state had not appeared in court to testify on the day of trail, the state could not have proved without a reasonable doubt that this guy was even guilty. That meant that the defendant would have been found not guilty by default and the state would not be able to be retried him for this crime again. Now, that’s impressive while also pretty backwards.
So it was the stance of the defense that they wait until the day of trial to see if this witness showed up. When he did – bright and early – the defense attorney had no choice but to change the plea to guilty and move the jury right to the punishment sentencing. We as the jury had no knowledge of this while we were sentencing the guy. If I had known, I would have sat in that jury room for 100 days unrelenting on a 2year sentence. But I can’t fault the guy or his defense attorney… work the system and use it’s weaknesses to your benefit. Didn’t work this time, but I’m sure it has many times before.
But what the defense attorney would have had us believe was that the defendant had had a change of heart. He’d be struck by his conscience. Which that’s what they were selling and that’s definitely NOT what I (or 9 other jurors for that matter) were buying. I didn’t know all the facts while sentencing; I just knew something was off.
The gay guy chimed in and asked how come this came to trial in the 1st place and why they couldn’t settle it out of court. The states attorney said they tried to keep it out of the courtroom by offering this guy a 1year punishment and he had turned it down. While that riled up the gay guy thinking that if that’s what the state was going to offer, we were too harsh. Too late, friend. I had to laugh at that too. But it’s common knowledge that to settle outside of court, the punishment is less severe.
Bottom line, the defendant thought he would sit in jail for 6months and if the witness showed up, it was most likely (based on his past experience) that he’d get the minimum punishment of 180days and the time it took to get him to trail would be time served and he’d be out that day – more-or-less. Best scenario for him was to hope the witness didn’t show up and be found innocent due to lack of evidence.
The really funny part of it all was that had he accepted the 1year offered by the state, he’d probably have been out in 8 or 9 months. That would have had him sitting in jail for another 2-3 months max. Instead he played roulette with a jury hoping the marble would land on sympathy (yet again) and he could cash out and call it a day. Not quite. He’d be serving at least another 10-11months at a minimum of the 16months he had remaining on our 22month verdict. That I found funny. Not maniacally funny, but just funny how the system works and how well these criminals know how to use it.
I was on my way back to work before noon. Another jury duty down… another time selected to serve on a jury… another foreman title under my belt… and the knowledge that no matter when I get called to jury duty, should my number be selected to move to a district courtroom, I will be selected to serve. You know the government doesn’t do anything efficiently or effectively, however keeping notes on jurors is done impeccably. Of course that would be the case. How could I get screwed repeatedly if they didn’t?
At the end of it all, I felt neither civic or like I’d fulfilled my duty.
As soon as the 12 jurors retired to the deliberation room, we were instructed to select a foreman. This was odd to me, as the foreman should have been decided upon the day before when the original 12 were selected, however it did not happen that way.
As soon as the bailiff closed the door to the room, all 11 fingers pointed at me. Yeah, no shit… I’m always the foreman. Fine. Whatever, let’s do this shit and get out of here – was my only thought.
Before we did anything else, I asked that we go around the room and allow each person to say their thoughts and what they felt the punishment should be. Our sentencing limitations were as follows – we could give no less than 180days and no more than 2years. We could also decide if we felt like a monetary fine was appropriate. If we decided to fine the defendant, we’d have to agree upon that amount as well.
The first guy to vote was a gay guy. There’s no significance to the fact that he was gay other than the fact that he announced that he was and was a strong liberal before he even gave his opinion. It was his stance that the defendant be given no fine and thought that for the offense of stealing less than $100 in groceries the sentence should not be over the 180days.
The next 8 people voted the max sentence of 2years or 24months and no fine. I think we all agreed that a fine was pointless. The state would never see a dime from this guy anyhow. Thinking back on it, I wish we would have been open to a fine. Maybe if they guy refused to pay or could not pay it, there would be more severe repercussions in the future. Hindsight…
The 9th person to vote was one of the 4 women on the jury. She was of the same mind as the 1st juror. This is only $100 and she would not agree to sentence him to the max. She was extremely defensive about her decision saying that she refused to say 2years because that’s what everyone else thought. I said – That’s fine. You don’t have to agree with everyone else. You are entitled to your opinion just as the rest of us have been. She then wanted to argue her side in extreme detail. I, as the foreman, cut her off to give the remaining 2 jurors the chance to voice their opinions before we went full force in finding a middle ground on the punishment.
The remaining 2 jurors fell in line with the middle 8 – 2years and no monetary fine.
What I thought would be open and shut was about to turn into a damn zoo. The first guy who opposed the max sentence originally said that he’d be comfortable with the max sentence as long as there was no fine attached to the sentence. All but one of us agreed that that was a fair sentencing – the defensive chick, of course. It seemed a little too easy to get the gay guy to flip on his original opinion which drenched in extreme passion to only sentence this guy to 180days. It ended up that the changing of his mind so quickly was in fact easier then it seemed. He flip-flopped back and forth on his stance and suggestions as to a sentencing compromise. His back and forth closely aligned with the woman who held the only other opposing view of the max sentence.
Ok… this was going nowhere and quick. Aside from that, there was another juror, a male, who was resistant to anything under 2years/max sentence. It became clear quickly that if we didn’t find a middle ground acceptable to all, we’d hang this jury, there’d be a mistrial and this would have to start all over again. Another jury selection. Another plea. Another day spent on something so blatantly obvious to me and 10 other jurors. I decided to make things a little more real for these 2 and more specifically, the opposing woman. The gay guy flip-flopped so much that if I figured if I could get the woman on board, he’d follow in tow – I was almost positive of that fact.
I say to her – Is it the amount of money that is a problem for you to sentence this guy to the max jail time?
She says – Yes, it’s $100. I cannot justify sending someone to jail for 2years for just $100 in groceries from Fiesta.
Me – It’s not about it JUST being $100. Let me ask you something. Let’s say this defendant stole $100 from your bank account directly. And let’s say that his stealing your $100 caused all the checks you’d just written for bills and such to bounce. Would it feel like JUST $100 then?
She didn’t respond, instead she stared at me. She knew there was no logical thing to say in that moment that defended her stance.
Me – Furthermore, you are almost saying that to steal $100 from someone else is not that big of a deal and holds no significant importance. So is it your position that $100 isn’t a large enough amount to punish someone to the fullest? Let me put it like this… let’s say there are 1,000 people who stole $100. Now you are talking about $10,000. Would it be easier for you to sentence someone to 2years if they’d stolen $10,000? Because essentially, you are saying that $100 stolen by one person isn’t really worthy of being considered a real crime. And I might agree with you on a smaller scale. I’m looking at the bigger picture. I happen to feel like your stance sets the precedence of leniency on the worth of what was stolen and not on the basic underlying fact that no matter how much or how small it is that is taken, it’s still against the law. I would be less inclined to punish this defendant to the fullest had this been his first offense. We’re talking about 7 known theft offenses in Texas, one in Georgia and 1 from when he was 16years old. It’s not just about the $100 here. Furthermore, let’s say he stole $100 every offense in Texas. That makes $700 total. And 1 step further, we only know of the 7 other previous cases that he was caught on. This does not account for the times he’s gotten away with stealing something. Which that is an unknown and a guess and not fair to use that as a discriminating factor in this particular case, but the thought really drives home the severity of this case. Does that make sense?
She says – I just think that 2years is too severe. I can’t bring myself to give him 2years for $100.
Me – It’s my general feeling that this guy knows exactly what he’s doing. Let’s go back to jury selection. I wondered why the defendant was present for it at all. Did anyone else notice the defendant’s demeanor during the jury selection?
A couple people chimed in with – yeah, it was really odd. He had his head hung low and was giving off the feeling of embarrassment, remorse, shame…
Me – Guilt? And let me say that I was not biased against this man because of his demeanor during jury selection. I just found it odd. I always listen to all the facts and make a decision on the basis of the facts in relation to how a person is behaving – not solely on one or the other. That being said, my initial feeling of his demeanor being one of guilt was confirmed this morning when he changed his plea to guilty. I can’t help but think that the jury selection, the defense attorney’s specific jury selection questions, and the fact his attorney never once told him to sit up and be more attentive was all a plan to get the jury to first feel badly for the guy before he even spoke in his own defense and second to belittle the severity of the charged offense. Like a smoke screen, almost.
There were several other jurors that had felt the same way as I had. However, the 1st juror was now getting a little out of control with his reasoning.
He says – why put him in for 2year and waste the tax payer’s dollars? Furthermore, he’s just going to get out and do it again, so what’s the point?
Me – Well for starters, you’re paying the same amount of taxes whether we put this guy in jail for an hour or 10years – so that line of reasoning is rather inconsequential to determining his sentence for this particular offense. That’s one. Two, you have no idea what this guy will do when he gets out of jail this time. It is not your responsibility to pull out a crystal ball and tell the future. It is however, your responsibility to take into account all his acknowledged past charges and guilty verdicts for theft and make a decision of how to sentence THIS offense. No future offense has happened yet. Furthermore, what’s to say he goes to jail this time and has his moment – the moment where he does want to be better and change and then does and never steals anything ever again. I could argue that the longer time we give him in jail, the more time he has to have that moment in time.
Someone else chimed in – and we know in jail he can get the education on computers that he desperately wants, or at least made it seem like he wanted. He can also get cancer treatment for free – well on the tax payer’s dollars. He admittedly hasn’t done that yet because he didn’t have the time, money or resources to do so.
>I’m not sure who said this but it made all us laugh… After the juror said – He admittedly hasn’t done that yet because he didn’t have the time, money or resources to do so. *And you can’t steal a bag of chemo…*
He could reap all those benefits while spending more time in jail, should he choose to be better and make a change.
Me – And really, let’s think about it like this. When I was young and I would get punished for bad behavior, I would get spanked. As I got older and reached the driving age, spanking me would be a fleeting punishment. I’d rather get the snot spanked out of me than lose my driving privileges. The same concept applies here. This guy has had probation – which he could not even successfully complete without being arrested for another theft charge. He has successfully convinced every jury and judge up until this point that he has learned his lesson and wants to be a contributing member of society to the point that he has never been sentenced to anything more than the minimum. Now, how’s that minimum sentence working out? Because to me, it’s like spanking a 16year old and then letting them go drive and hang out with their friends – AKA not doing a damn thing. Something has to change and what we can change is the punishment.
The female juror that was opposed to max sentence says – I agree that something has to change; I just don’t think 2years is the answer.
Me – Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. What do you suggest if not 2years?
Her – Oh, I don’t know. Just not 2years.
I’m like great. This is like everyone else in the world. Bitch about the problems in the world and drag everyone down and never see a problem and offer a solution. What a damn beating. I’ve already talked about this for an hour longer then I even thought we’d have to.
So this brilliant guy says – let’s take the average of what all the jurors want to sentence and go with that number.
Me – Ok, let’s see what that comes out to.
And somehow, the number came out to 22months. Which, I was positive that the opposing woman wasn’t going to agree to, given that that’s only 2months shy of 2years. Sigh.
Then it dawned on me. This guy’s been sitting in jail since July 1st 2009. That’s just about 6months/180days to the date. So I mention that to the jury and then follow that up with – I wonder if that is considered time served? There’s a slight buzz in the room at the revelation. I send a note to the judge to ask if that’s the case. I then try to rationalize that he only had to complete another 14months to hit a 2year sentence. I asked her if she’d be more comfortable sentencing him to 2years knowing he’d already served 6months? She said she wouldn’t. Shit.
I then had a thought that I spoke out before I even really crafted it into a complete sentences – that’s awfully damn convenient that the defense is asking us to take mercy on this guy and give him the minimum sentence which would have this guy out of jail before Christmas. It almost sounds like they are working the system. This guy might be unintelligent, but I do believe he has become a true master at his craft and we know it’s not being a good thief. It’s impressive really. That all that fancy footwork has played into 2 people out of 12 feeling sympathy towards an admitted repeat offender who said in open court he knew what his other options were outside of stealing and just, plain and simple, had zero desire utilize those options. That he thought he could get away with stealing from Fiesta and it was only when he was caught and knew he was in serious trouble that he felt any sense of quote/unquote – remorse. He was only sorry when he was caught and knew that his jury luck and sympathy vote is wearing thin. Man… this guy. Impressive.
After a few people try and convince the one opposing woman that she was wrong, I realized that there had to be something that made sense to her to bring her to the consensus of the majority of the other jurors. It was in that moment that another juror said flippantly – it’s not like he is going to serve all 24months. They never do. At least by sentencing him to 24months, we know he will stay in longer than he has previously, and really I think that everyone agrees that that is the ultimate objective here.
That sparks speculation of how long he would actually have to serve. Once the idea was planted, you could see that the one opposing woman was wavering from her unrelenting opposition.
The guy who had run the math and come up with 22months speaks up again driving home that the average of what everyone wanted was less than 2years which should satisfy everyone. We were still waiting for the response back from the judge on whether the time the guy had already spent in jail would be considered as time served when the gay guy says – ok, I will agree to 22months and no monetary fee. He looked at the opposing woman and she said, out of nowhere – You know, I can live with that. What the hell? Did we really just come to a decision?! Too easy? Maybe not!
To which I immediately jump in and say, can we all agree to that? As everyone is nodding in agreement, I follow that up with – So no matter what response comes back from the judge on time served, we are all saying we agree to 22months and no fine, right?
Everyone again nods. Holy shit… the impossible has just happened.
I grabbed the foreman paper and quickly wrote in the appropriate slots – 22months and zero monetary fine. I sign it – illegibly of course – and just as the bailiff returns with the answer to our question about time served and before I can even read it, I shove the paper into his hand and say – we’ve made a decision. Although we’d all agreed that no matter what the answer was to time served, we would not change our sentencing verdict, but I would be damned if I was running the risk of having to spend a minute longer with these people.
As the bailiff disappeared, the room wanted to know what the response was to time served. As I folded the paper in half, without looking at it, I said it’s really rather irrelevant to anything at this point anyhow, so why bother to know? And let me tell you, that statement as simple and innocent as I thought it was damn near started WWIII in that tiny room. The one original opposing woman and the gay guy just about came unglued insisting on knowing what it said. Ah hell… I hope this isn’t going to cause some dramatic backlash…
So I open it, on the sole premise of self preservation given that the woman and gay guy were starting to obviously doubt their decision of the 22month sentence and I thought I might get jumped in the parking lot if I didn’t read it, I read it.
Those 6months were considered time served. I was right. That revelation really only confirmed that this guy was pretty damn brilliant at working the system. He really would have been out before Christmas. There was some discussion about how he should have had been given the max sentence and opposition from the 2 really starting to show signs that they were manhandled in that jury room by a select few people to push them to side with the majority. Ha… I enjoyed that, slightly. Ok let’s be real… a lot!
They call us back to the jury box and we all file in, except I now sit in jury chair one, indicating that I was the foreman. The states attorney looked at me and cracked a smirk so as to say he was not in the least bit shocked that I was selected as the foreman. The sentencing paper was passed back to me and I read the verdict. The judge then asked each juror, one-by-one, if this was their sentencing verdict. I really thought that when it got to the one woman, she would have something more to contribute to her response besides, yes. She didn’t. Thank God. We were then dismissed back to the jury room to be debriefed and to chat with the states attorney and judge if we so chose to. As the foreman, the judge generally wants to speak with the foreman after the trial so I hung around for a bit after they thanked us for our service and excused the jurors.
The judge comes in and as suspected, wanted to chat with me. He had some really funny things to say about this guy and that he thought we made the best decision we could. He was pretty flabbergasted that we were able to come to an agreed 22month sentence with 2 strongly opposed jurors. It was at that point that I noticed that the gay guy had hung around to chat with the states attorney.
And here’s where it gets a little more interesting…
The states attorney comes in and starts telling us all the stuff he couldn’t say during the trial. For instance, the state knew of over 15 guilty theft convictions for this guy in the state of Texas alone. They couldn’t present all of those during the trial due to some kind of evidence chain. Each piece of evidence has to be approved and submitted. If it does not go through that process, even though those guilty offenses are known and on record, they cannot offer those to the jury in any capacity. The exception on that is if the defendant speaks about other offenses on the stand, ones that weren’t entered into evidence for whatever reason can then be probed and investigated further. Like in this trial, when the states attorney asked the defendant if he’d had charges in other states for theft, he admitted to one – the one in Georgia. Once he admitted to that, the states attorney could ask him more in-depth as to that case without the risk of being objected. The states attorney said he was shocked the defendant admitted to that at all as he didn’t have to. I chuckled… not so smart are ya?
As the states attorney is telling us that he was extremely pleased with the sentencing verdict, it most likely won’t matter. In the matter of theft, there is no sliding scale as to increased punishment for repeat offenders. The max this guy could ever really get is 2years. Which, when you think about it, is kinda bullshit given that this sentencing has done jack to “rehabilitate” this guy. The states attorney said – hopefully he’ll do something more dramatic to include drugs or a weapon in the future so that they press deeper charges. And to that, I laughed hard – the kind of uncontrollable laugh where you didn’t expect it and then there you are… in tears.
It’s like – Wait what? You want him to put a weapon to someone or steal drugs so the state can REALLY punish him? Laugh out loud. How damn backwards is that? I liked it.
Then the states attorney tells us why they even went to jury selection in the first place. And this was a doosey. It wasn’t until the day of trial that the state knew for a fact that their one witness to the whole crime and essentially their entire case that he’d show up to testify. When the crime happened, this guy worked for Fiesta. Once they were pushed into trial, he’d been transferred to a subsidiary company within Fiesta. It took the state a bit to track him down and have him commit to showing up for trial.
Now, that being said, if that witness for the state had not appeared in court to testify on the day of trail, the state could not have proved without a reasonable doubt that this guy was even guilty. That meant that the defendant would have been found not guilty by default and the state would not be able to be retried him for this crime again. Now, that’s impressive while also pretty backwards.
So it was the stance of the defense that they wait until the day of trial to see if this witness showed up. When he did – bright and early – the defense attorney had no choice but to change the plea to guilty and move the jury right to the punishment sentencing. We as the jury had no knowledge of this while we were sentencing the guy. If I had known, I would have sat in that jury room for 100 days unrelenting on a 2year sentence. But I can’t fault the guy or his defense attorney… work the system and use it’s weaknesses to your benefit. Didn’t work this time, but I’m sure it has many times before.
But what the defense attorney would have had us believe was that the defendant had had a change of heart. He’d be struck by his conscience. Which that’s what they were selling and that’s definitely NOT what I (or 9 other jurors for that matter) were buying. I didn’t know all the facts while sentencing; I just knew something was off.
The gay guy chimed in and asked how come this came to trial in the 1st place and why they couldn’t settle it out of court. The states attorney said they tried to keep it out of the courtroom by offering this guy a 1year punishment and he had turned it down. While that riled up the gay guy thinking that if that’s what the state was going to offer, we were too harsh. Too late, friend. I had to laugh at that too. But it’s common knowledge that to settle outside of court, the punishment is less severe.
Bottom line, the defendant thought he would sit in jail for 6months and if the witness showed up, it was most likely (based on his past experience) that he’d get the minimum punishment of 180days and the time it took to get him to trail would be time served and he’d be out that day – more-or-less. Best scenario for him was to hope the witness didn’t show up and be found innocent due to lack of evidence.
The really funny part of it all was that had he accepted the 1year offered by the state, he’d probably have been out in 8 or 9 months. That would have had him sitting in jail for another 2-3 months max. Instead he played roulette with a jury hoping the marble would land on sympathy (yet again) and he could cash out and call it a day. Not quite. He’d be serving at least another 10-11months at a minimum of the 16months he had remaining on our 22month verdict. That I found funny. Not maniacally funny, but just funny how the system works and how well these criminals know how to use it.
I was on my way back to work before noon. Another jury duty down… another time selected to serve on a jury… another foreman title under my belt… and the knowledge that no matter when I get called to jury duty, should my number be selected to move to a district courtroom, I will be selected to serve. You know the government doesn’t do anything efficiently or effectively, however keeping notes on jurors is done impeccably. Of course that would be the case. How could I get screwed repeatedly if they didn’t?
At the end of it all, I felt neither civic or like I’d fulfilled my duty.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ahhh, the trial…
Now that we’re all caught up on how jury selection works and why I am always selected to sit on a jury, let me share with you the ridiculousness of the actual case that we had to hear. I’ll tell it the same way I experienced it and in the same fashion that certain information was given to me/us – the jury.
On December 15th 2009, I arrive at the courthouse well before I was supposed to be there and made my way to the deliberation room for District Court 7 on the 7th Floor. The judge had made it extremely clear that we were NOT to be late. I did not take that as an idle threat as he was ex-military – a higher up of some kinda. We were to be in the deliberation room by 8:45am as court started promptly at 9:00am. I was there by 8:15am. I’d be damned if it was me that was going to be late!
As the other 11 jurors and 1 alternate make their way into the room, they sit down and we all make small chit-chat. Nothing special, because we were instructed NOT to talk about the case, which we still had no direct knowledge of outside of the jury selection questions and crafted speculations. We did try and surmise how many days we thought it would take to finish the trial. It was my guess that we’d have to go through to Wednesday on the basis of a few things. First, there was a gal that they selected that had children that she needed to pick up by 4:00pm. When she was selected to be on the jury the day before, the judge said we would work around her schedule (i.e. end trial for the day at 3:30pm so she could get her kids). Second, trial began at 9am. We were told we would take 30minute breaks every hour – on the hour. Then the judge tells us that we are taking lunch from 11:30am to 2:00pm. Why so long you ask? Well, simple – he was really big on the jury bonding, so we weren’t allowed to leave for lunch, but rather we had to get to know our fellow jury members. Awesome. So that being said, with all the 30minute breaks, the ridiculously long lunch hour and having to shut trial down at 3:30pm didn’t leave a whole lot of room to hear the whole trial in 1 day. I guessed we’d hear all the witnesses, but would have to come back Wednesday to continue to deliberate.
Made sense to me, but the lawyers and judge knew more than we did. They kept saying that they did not feel the trial would go more than 1 day. My reservation on believing that little detail was biased as the last trial I was on, they said it would last 1-2 days and I was there for 5.
After trying to guesstimate how much time we’d have to feel “civic” the jurors tried to speculate as to why each member was selected. I openly made the observation that it was a male dominated jury – 4 women and 9 men. If I had to guess as to why in that moment, which I did because the other jurors asked why I thought it was important, I speculated that it was going to be some kind of emotional trial. That being said, the gender most likely to sympathize with that would be a woman – by nature alone.
As 9:15am rolls around, the jury still hasn’t been called out of the deliberation room to begin trial. I start to wonder if they had decided to settle. Regardless if they had settled, the jury would still be involved in determining the ultimate sentence if they had settled to a guilty verdict. It wasn’t long after I started trying to figure out what the delay was, that the bailiff came in and asked us to line up in order on the basis of how we were called to the jury box the day before.
I was – Juror 10, Ms. Magnet.
We filed into the courtroom where the judge tells us that some things have ultimately changed and how we were going to be proceeding was going to change. At 9am to 9:15am the lawyers and judge were in the courtroom discussing things. It was at that time, that the defense attorney and the defendant had decided to enter a plea of guilty. The defendant had to say that he changed his plea to guilty in front of the jury and for the record. He stood and took ownership of the guilty plea.
The jury was then told that we’d hear from some witnesses from both the state and the defense but that it wouldn’t be as long and drawn out as it would have been if he’d wanted the jury to decide his guilt or innocence. The judge then shared that our sole duty at this point was to listen to the evidence and make a decision on the punishment that came with his theft charge. Again, we had the option of 180days to 2years. And so it began.
The state forfeited the option to give an opening statement. This led me to believe that they felt like it was a waste of time, and as we learned more – they were right.
The defense attorney reminded me of a dirty used care salesman. When he had asked questions to the jury the day before, you got this sense that he was trying to pull something over on you, but since everything was so vague, you couldn’t put your finger on the exacts. It also surprised me that sitting beside the defense attorney during the jury selection, was the defendant. He never once looked up at the potential jurors. He never once spoke to his lawyer. Rather, he sat with his head hung low. It was indicative of sorrow, remorse, embarrassment and potentially guilt. I wasn’t being biased, I just found it to be odd that the lawyer would first have him present for this part of the process and second never once tell his defendant to sit up or become more engaging (i.e. look a little less guilty). None of that made sense until after we’d come to a decision on the sentence.
The defense stood and set the scene for this being an emotional trial and planted the seed that they’d later be asking the jury to take mercy on the defendant. He didn’t speak for long. He just made the defendant out to be a sad state of affairs. I didn’t buy it.
Once the opening statements were done, the state called their first witness. He was a Loss Prevention Manager for Fiesta Grocery Store on Web Chapel. His testimony was designed to show how the defendant had stolen groceries and he’d seen the entire thing. He said that the defendant was first in the beer aisle. He said he felt like the defendant was acting suspiciously – nervous of his surroundings, jittery. The manager followed him throughout the store as he continued to gather items like sausage and other meat products and place them in his basket. The manager had then witnessed the defendant walk right past the cash registers and out the front door. The manager went out after the defendant and stopped him before he could leave asking to see a receipt of sale on the unsacked groceries that were in the cart. The defendant, of course, could not as he had not purchased any of the items. The manager escorted the defendant back into the store and held him until the police arrived. He recounted that the defendant was extremely cooperative, didn’t put up a fight and was generally upset and remorseful that he’d been caught.
Once the state was done questioning the Fiesta Manager, the defense asked a few questions. Nothing too elaborate, but did manage to drop in a weird question. He asked the manager if that after the police arrived, were any of the items that the defendant had stolen been given to the defendant and/or the defendant’s fiancé? The manager had no idea if that was the case or not and could not speak against it or in its favor. He was dismissed from the stand, but stayed to see the results of the trial.
I found that to be a weird question. Why would Fiesta or the police for that matter press charges and arrest the guy for theft only to turn around and give him some of the stolen items for free. I was eager to find out if that was the case – because someone somewhere would be in serious trouble for that. But if it were true, I could see how it could play to jury sympathy – so as to say, look even the store and/or the police recognized the defendant’s dire situation. The seed was planted. I wasn’t watering it yet, but I definitely had the faucet turned on.
Next to the stand was the arresting police officer. She went through her account of the situation. She’d arrived, viewed the video tape of the defendant stealing the groceries, taken an inventory of those stolen items to come to a total value and then subsequently arrested the defendant on charges of theft. The total value of the items stolen was just under $100. Now, I know you are saying – $100? That’s not a felony. Why is this even in a felony courtroom? –All will be revealed very soon, as I thought the exact same thing at that exact moment. The state then asked her how the defendant was acting when she arrested him. She shared that he knew he was in big trouble this time and that this was not his first offense. The defendant also told the officer that he had several warrants out for his arrest on other unrelated charges. His legal situation was obviously getting progressively worse.
Once the state was satisfied with the police officers account, she was turned over to the defense. The defense attorney asked again, if any of the items were released to the defendant’s fiancé. The officer said that she felt badly for the guy. He hadn’t put up a fight, was very cooperative and knew he was in some serious trouble this time. The defendant had indicated to her that this was not his first theft arrest. Because of his story and how sad he looked, the officer allowed the defendant to stop by their residence on the way to jail to drop off his keys, cell phone and personal items that were in his pocket. Once his fiancé had those items, she took the defendant to jail. The defense attorney pressed in asking if she’d released any of the stolen groceries to the fiancé. The police officer looked plain appalled. She said she had not and that those grocery items were itemized and returned to Fiesta. While she admitted it was not procedure to allow someone who is being arrested to stop by home to drop off personal affects, she did not release any Fiesta items to either one of them. That was the last question for her from the defense and she was then excused. Make no mistake, this police officer was extremely sympathetic to the defendants situation and played a good witness for both the state and defense.
I got to wondering why the defense lawyer was stuck on asking everyone if some of the grocery items that had been stolen were given to the defendant and/or to his fiancé. The defendant had to have told his attorney that that happened. Which was a blatant lie, obviously. That made me not think too kindly of the defendant and furthermore it made me feel like he was not as innocent or remorseful as he was being made out to be. If it was concocted by his lawyer… well, that’s why you never use a court appointed attorney. Note to self…
The state rested on the accounts of the store manager and the police officers testimony. The defense only called one witness – the defendant. And here’s where the defendant deserved a Tony Award. I mean… really quite brilliant in his ignorance. By the end of it, I felt sorry for the guy but was not interested in leniency. The 9 males and 4 women as juror selections were becoming overwhelmingly clear to me at this point. But all the defense needed was 1 juror to buy it and to either hang the jury or at the very least make them compromise to a lesser sentence so as to not hang the jury on such a small theft case.
The state rested and enter the defendant’s moment of glory. The defense lawyer called the defendant to the stand.
He was a Hispanic man and if I had to guess, I would say he was easily in his late 50s. He was wearing a decent suit that didn’t fit as if it were anything well made. It didn’t surprise me that this man most likely has never owned a suit. He was missing several of his bottom teeth. I couldn’t tell if any were missing from the top. When he spoke, he did not have a Spanish accent. He didn’t have an accent at all. He was at times hard to understand because of his poor usage of the English language and what almost sounded like a slight speech impediment. I could not deduce if it was in fact an impediment or rather him talking around his missing teeth. It wasn’t significant to anything really, but it did successfully make you feel that much sorrier for the guy.
The defendant was sworn under oath and took the stand. Before the defendant even stated his name for the court, he began to cough slightly and clear his throat. His lawyer addressed him informally asking him if he needed something to drink.
Now here’s where if this was a movie or Broadway play, some unseen narrator would have said – and here’s where the tap dance begins.
The defendant says to his lawyer – No sir. Thank you though. I just have Diabetes and it makes my throat dry sometimes. I’ll be fine.
Ok, now in my head, I start to go… whhhhhat? That was an awfully convenient way to drop that in without having to outright ask about his health. If he had, I think it would have been a lot easier for the people on a jury to say – ok, really? They’re playing the “I’m sick” card – feel sorry before I even state my name. That’s some balls. Audacity, really. But ok, I guess you have to use what you have and make it work. If he even really had diabetes… I’ll never know.
His lawyer then asks him to explain what happened on July 1st 2009 when he was arrested at Fiesta on theft charges.
The defendant begins…
I haven’t been a good man. I have been an even worse father.
(At this point, he tears up, and stumbles through the rest of his recount pausing at moments to regain his composure, cry a little more, burry his face in his hands, and ask for tissues before continuing through his testimony. And truly, it was sad to watch – I’m not heartless, but I am fair.)
Over the last 5 years things have just gotten progressively worse. I have a job. I’m a truck driver. I make about $300 a week, when the work is steady. Right now, my fiancé and I are living in a motel paying rent week-to-week. Five years ago, my mother died. I never really recovered from that. It’s all been down hill from there. I have been trying to figure out a way to get my life back on track. I wanted to be a better father to my children. That’s when I had the idea to go to Fiesta and steal some food so that I could throw a small 4th of July barbeque for the kids. You know, to start over, fresh. It was a really dumb idea. I know it was wrong, but I still did it and I am willing to accept any punishment that I receive for my actions.
His lawyer starts to dig in deeper. He asks him to elaborate on how exactly it was that he came to the idea of stealing food from Fiesta in the first place.
The defendant says (still whimpering, crying) – I was next door at my neighbors place. We’d been drinking pretty heavily. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. I came up with the idea to try and have the kids over and start becoming a better dad. To be a person in their lives.
Lawyer – How’s your health as it stands right now?
Defendant (in almost a whisper) – Cancer. *then he paused, put his head in his hands and cried very hard*
>>I wasn’t even sure if I had heard him right? Did he say he has cancer now?
Defendant (after regaining some composure) – It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have done what I did. It was wrong and I will take any punishment I am given.
Lawyer – Did you say you have cancer?
Defendant – Yes. I have cancer. I was diagnosed with it back in February of 2009. I haven’t done anything about it because I have been trying to work and deal with all my diabetes doctor’s appointments. Soon enough, I was missing a lot of work, which I could not afford. I have no idea what stage I am even in right now?
Lawyer – Are you getting treatment in jail currently?
Defendant – Well sir, I had tried. I was supposed to be seeing a doctor, but they never took me to a hospital of any kind. They didn’t do my blood work and I felt like they were not interested in helping me. The other day, they said they were going to take me back to the doctor. I signed a sheet saying that I refused medical care telling them that the doctors they were sending me to were not helping and I was done with all of that. I later found out, that they had planned on taking me to Parkland to get tested and assessed. When I heard that, I tried to remove my refusal of medical treatment, but it’s a long process to do that. I have been in jail since July and I have not been treated for the cancer.
>>Ok, for the record – as the defendant was saying all of this, the judge laughed. He laughed so hard he was red in the face. He was laughing in total shock and dismay that this guy was even saying what he was saying. The states attorneys looked as if the Cancer proclamation was news to them too; hearing it for the very 1st time.
The defense lawyer got the point pretty quickly and steered the defendant in another direction. He wanted the defendant to start talking about the computer classes he had been taking while he was in jail this last time awaiting this trial.
Defendant – I have been taking computer classes and getting certifications. I wanted to better myself this time. I wanted to come out a better person. I wanted to turn my life around. The idea was to learn computers so I could buy one for my truck. So I could keep better track of my routes and loads, etc. I had hoped that when I was done serving this sentence that I would be able to buy my own truck. Be my own boss. Make a change.
>>Yeeeeah, right. Dude, you’re stealing $100 worth of groceries. You aren’t buying your own truck when you get out of here. Really?! Good Lord, this was getting out of control.
The defense lawyer asked a few more questions here and there that he knew would provoke tears and lengthy pauses so that his client could gather himself before continuing. And the honest truth of it all is that I believed some of what this guy had to say. I really did. I felt badly for him. Like he’d been dealt a bad hand and was making one bad decision on top of another. I don’t know if he was really sick with diabetes or cancer as no one proved it or to its contrary. Nonetheless, something happened to this guy. What? I wasn’t exactly sure. I wasn’t too naive to know that what he was telling wasn’t the whole story. There was a big part of me that felt like this guy knew exactly what he was doing and was attempting to milk the system. I, however had no evidence of that… yet.
After the defense was through, the defendant was turned over to the state for questioning. And here’s where all the warm and fuzzy feelings came to a screeching halt. The state’s attorney had zero sympathy for this guy. Almost to the extent that he’d seen and dealt with this guy before – possibly several times. I wasn’t sure yet as he hadn’t really asked any deep revealing questions, but his tone and demeanor was indicative of annoyance of having to be at this trial in the 1st place.
The states attorney then cuts the wound a little deeper. He shows the jury and the court 7 documents. Each of the 7 documents were prior arrests and guilty convictions for theft by the defendant stemming from 2007 to the current charge from July 1st 2009. In each offence, the defendant was caught stealing groceries at or around the $100 value mark. This is where the state explained to the defendant that repeat offenses of theft become felony charges, and that was why we were here today. He asked the defendant if he understood that and he said he did. I more think that it was the states way of letting the jury know why such a “small” offense was being seen in a felony court instead of a civil court.
The states attorney pressed into each offense and the repercussions of each offense. The 1st offense that was brought to felony court was in 2007. The defendant received a fine and 2years probation. He didn’t even make it off of probation before he was arrested for theft again. When he was arrested the 2nd time, they revoked the probation and sentenced him to the minimum sentence at that time of 120days in jail. Each offense there after, the defendant would claim guilt at the last minute, and offer the sentence up to a selected jury – a lot like the jury I was now sitting on. For the remaining 6 offenses, the defendant had received the minimum sentence of somewhere between 120days to 180days.
After the defendant readily acknowledged all those previous offenses with little coaxing, the states attorney asked him – when is enough, enough? The defendant resorted to his normal response of – I was wrong and I am sorry. I will accept any punishment that this jury sees fit. –When you think about it, this is really a non-response.
The states attorney asked the defendant if he knew about resources like Salvation Army that could help people in his situation; to give people an option to not steal.
Defendant (and here’s where my sympathy hit the edge of a 3million mile cliff) – Yeah, I know about those options. I have tried some before. I just didn’t like them. I didn’t want to use them.
States Lawyer – You knew about them and didn’t want to use them? Are you saying that you feel that stealing someone else’s property is a better solution? The only solution?
Defendant – No sir. I just couldn’t bring myself to ask for the help. I didn’t want to burden anyone.
>> Here’s where the defendant is now playing the – father with pride – card.
States Lawyer – How many people do you feel you have burdened here today, by having to bring this case before a judge?
The defendant offered no verbal response. Instead, he began to cry again muttering something about cancer, being wrong, owning up to it all… I’m not sure what he was saying at that point in time. With his speech impediment or lack of teeth, he was borderline unintelligible.
States Lawyer – Are these 7 offenses that I have presented here today in court the only times you have been arrested?
Defendant – No sir. I was arrested when I was 16.
States Lawyer – For theft?
Defendant – Yes sir, but I was just a kid.
States Lawyer (not even gracing the “kid” comment with a rebuttal) – Have you ever been arrested in other states?
Defendant – No sir.
States Lawyer – You’ve never been arrested in Georgia for larceny?
Defendant – What’s larceny, sir?
States Lawyer – It’s a fancy word for theft.
Defendant – Oh, yes sir. I was arrested for that in Georgia. I didn’t understand what you were asking.
States Lawyer – Can you tell the court about that incident?
Defendant (after a long pause, placing his head in his hands and crying again) – It was just stupid sir. It wasn’t right and I was just stupid. There’s not much more to say about it other than that. I was stupid.
Even though the defendant didn’t even begin to try and answer that question, the states lawyer’s point was made. It’s not about the 7 times you have been arrested in Texas; that we know about, but more-so the fact that this is a pattern not limited to the last 5 years of things going downhill in Texas. The states lawyer didn’t even press him further to give more details and not hide behind a cop-out response. He’d done what he’d come to do and that was discredit all the crying and emotional antics.
States Lawyer – How is it that you want this jury to believe you when you say you’re sorry? That you won’t do this again. How many times and to how many juries have you said that this is the last time? Why are we to believe you this time?
Defendant – This time sir, I am taking classes while I am in here. I want to be a better person when I get out. That’s the difference, sir.
I found that hard to believe. What I did believe is his defense attorney saying – oh shit man. This is number 8 on the theft charges. I’m not sure the crying act will work again this time. We’re going to have to do better than that. We’ll need cancer. How can you argue cancer? You can’t. Yes, we’ll have cancer. OH and you’ll need to take some classes while you are in there. You’ll be in there for a bit awaiting trial you might as well sneak in some computer courses. Oh yeah, yeah… that’s good. This could work.
At one point, while the state was questioning the defendant, the defendant said that he had only tried to steal from Fiesta because he really thought he could get away with it. That it wasn’t until he was caught that he’d even reconciled that the decision was a stupid one. That admission did not sit well with me in the least bit.
The states attorney had a few more questions that were relatively inconsequential but further elaborated the fact that the defendant had no intention of changing his behaviors.
The state then rested and closing arguments began. The defense lawyer was first.
He was as brief in his closing as he was in his opening statement. He leaned on the fact that the defendant was taking classes this time. That the defendant wanted to be better and make a change in his life. He then closed his statement by begging the jury to take mercy on his client and show him some leniency.
The states attorney stood up and without sugar coating one thing reiterated that the defendant was a repeat offender. He nothing short of accused the defendant of being manipulative and calculated in his defense. He brought out the 7 previous convictions and went through each one again. He pressed the fact that the defendant had had minimum sentences for all of his previous convictions. He highlighted that there was an infinite amount of people who had been down in the dumps and had not resorted to theft as the solution. He asked the jury how much did we want to spend out of pocket to let people like the defendant believe that what he was doing was acceptable. He then ended with the line – And really… when is enough, enough?
By 10:38, the decision had been handed over to the jury for deliberation on the sentencing. I felt like the decision was simple and that the deliberation would take nothing more than 1 quick vote and we’d be on our way back to our own lives… work.
How wrong could one person be? The intricacies of a jury’s deliberation to reach a decision agreed upon by 12 people was a whole different story.
On December 15th 2009, I arrive at the courthouse well before I was supposed to be there and made my way to the deliberation room for District Court 7 on the 7th Floor. The judge had made it extremely clear that we were NOT to be late. I did not take that as an idle threat as he was ex-military – a higher up of some kinda. We were to be in the deliberation room by 8:45am as court started promptly at 9:00am. I was there by 8:15am. I’d be damned if it was me that was going to be late!
As the other 11 jurors and 1 alternate make their way into the room, they sit down and we all make small chit-chat. Nothing special, because we were instructed NOT to talk about the case, which we still had no direct knowledge of outside of the jury selection questions and crafted speculations. We did try and surmise how many days we thought it would take to finish the trial. It was my guess that we’d have to go through to Wednesday on the basis of a few things. First, there was a gal that they selected that had children that she needed to pick up by 4:00pm. When she was selected to be on the jury the day before, the judge said we would work around her schedule (i.e. end trial for the day at 3:30pm so she could get her kids). Second, trial began at 9am. We were told we would take 30minute breaks every hour – on the hour. Then the judge tells us that we are taking lunch from 11:30am to 2:00pm. Why so long you ask? Well, simple – he was really big on the jury bonding, so we weren’t allowed to leave for lunch, but rather we had to get to know our fellow jury members. Awesome. So that being said, with all the 30minute breaks, the ridiculously long lunch hour and having to shut trial down at 3:30pm didn’t leave a whole lot of room to hear the whole trial in 1 day. I guessed we’d hear all the witnesses, but would have to come back Wednesday to continue to deliberate.
Made sense to me, but the lawyers and judge knew more than we did. They kept saying that they did not feel the trial would go more than 1 day. My reservation on believing that little detail was biased as the last trial I was on, they said it would last 1-2 days and I was there for 5.
After trying to guesstimate how much time we’d have to feel “civic” the jurors tried to speculate as to why each member was selected. I openly made the observation that it was a male dominated jury – 4 women and 9 men. If I had to guess as to why in that moment, which I did because the other jurors asked why I thought it was important, I speculated that it was going to be some kind of emotional trial. That being said, the gender most likely to sympathize with that would be a woman – by nature alone.
As 9:15am rolls around, the jury still hasn’t been called out of the deliberation room to begin trial. I start to wonder if they had decided to settle. Regardless if they had settled, the jury would still be involved in determining the ultimate sentence if they had settled to a guilty verdict. It wasn’t long after I started trying to figure out what the delay was, that the bailiff came in and asked us to line up in order on the basis of how we were called to the jury box the day before.
I was – Juror 10, Ms. Magnet.
We filed into the courtroom where the judge tells us that some things have ultimately changed and how we were going to be proceeding was going to change. At 9am to 9:15am the lawyers and judge were in the courtroom discussing things. It was at that time, that the defense attorney and the defendant had decided to enter a plea of guilty. The defendant had to say that he changed his plea to guilty in front of the jury and for the record. He stood and took ownership of the guilty plea.
The jury was then told that we’d hear from some witnesses from both the state and the defense but that it wouldn’t be as long and drawn out as it would have been if he’d wanted the jury to decide his guilt or innocence. The judge then shared that our sole duty at this point was to listen to the evidence and make a decision on the punishment that came with his theft charge. Again, we had the option of 180days to 2years. And so it began.
The state forfeited the option to give an opening statement. This led me to believe that they felt like it was a waste of time, and as we learned more – they were right.
The defense attorney reminded me of a dirty used care salesman. When he had asked questions to the jury the day before, you got this sense that he was trying to pull something over on you, but since everything was so vague, you couldn’t put your finger on the exacts. It also surprised me that sitting beside the defense attorney during the jury selection, was the defendant. He never once looked up at the potential jurors. He never once spoke to his lawyer. Rather, he sat with his head hung low. It was indicative of sorrow, remorse, embarrassment and potentially guilt. I wasn’t being biased, I just found it to be odd that the lawyer would first have him present for this part of the process and second never once tell his defendant to sit up or become more engaging (i.e. look a little less guilty). None of that made sense until after we’d come to a decision on the sentence.
The defense stood and set the scene for this being an emotional trial and planted the seed that they’d later be asking the jury to take mercy on the defendant. He didn’t speak for long. He just made the defendant out to be a sad state of affairs. I didn’t buy it.
Once the opening statements were done, the state called their first witness. He was a Loss Prevention Manager for Fiesta Grocery Store on Web Chapel. His testimony was designed to show how the defendant had stolen groceries and he’d seen the entire thing. He said that the defendant was first in the beer aisle. He said he felt like the defendant was acting suspiciously – nervous of his surroundings, jittery. The manager followed him throughout the store as he continued to gather items like sausage and other meat products and place them in his basket. The manager had then witnessed the defendant walk right past the cash registers and out the front door. The manager went out after the defendant and stopped him before he could leave asking to see a receipt of sale on the unsacked groceries that were in the cart. The defendant, of course, could not as he had not purchased any of the items. The manager escorted the defendant back into the store and held him until the police arrived. He recounted that the defendant was extremely cooperative, didn’t put up a fight and was generally upset and remorseful that he’d been caught.
Once the state was done questioning the Fiesta Manager, the defense asked a few questions. Nothing too elaborate, but did manage to drop in a weird question. He asked the manager if that after the police arrived, were any of the items that the defendant had stolen been given to the defendant and/or the defendant’s fiancé? The manager had no idea if that was the case or not and could not speak against it or in its favor. He was dismissed from the stand, but stayed to see the results of the trial.
I found that to be a weird question. Why would Fiesta or the police for that matter press charges and arrest the guy for theft only to turn around and give him some of the stolen items for free. I was eager to find out if that was the case – because someone somewhere would be in serious trouble for that. But if it were true, I could see how it could play to jury sympathy – so as to say, look even the store and/or the police recognized the defendant’s dire situation. The seed was planted. I wasn’t watering it yet, but I definitely had the faucet turned on.
Next to the stand was the arresting police officer. She went through her account of the situation. She’d arrived, viewed the video tape of the defendant stealing the groceries, taken an inventory of those stolen items to come to a total value and then subsequently arrested the defendant on charges of theft. The total value of the items stolen was just under $100. Now, I know you are saying – $100? That’s not a felony. Why is this even in a felony courtroom? –All will be revealed very soon, as I thought the exact same thing at that exact moment. The state then asked her how the defendant was acting when she arrested him. She shared that he knew he was in big trouble this time and that this was not his first offense. The defendant also told the officer that he had several warrants out for his arrest on other unrelated charges. His legal situation was obviously getting progressively worse.
Once the state was satisfied with the police officers account, she was turned over to the defense. The defense attorney asked again, if any of the items were released to the defendant’s fiancé. The officer said that she felt badly for the guy. He hadn’t put up a fight, was very cooperative and knew he was in some serious trouble this time. The defendant had indicated to her that this was not his first theft arrest. Because of his story and how sad he looked, the officer allowed the defendant to stop by their residence on the way to jail to drop off his keys, cell phone and personal items that were in his pocket. Once his fiancé had those items, she took the defendant to jail. The defense attorney pressed in asking if she’d released any of the stolen groceries to the fiancé. The police officer looked plain appalled. She said she had not and that those grocery items were itemized and returned to Fiesta. While she admitted it was not procedure to allow someone who is being arrested to stop by home to drop off personal affects, she did not release any Fiesta items to either one of them. That was the last question for her from the defense and she was then excused. Make no mistake, this police officer was extremely sympathetic to the defendants situation and played a good witness for both the state and defense.
I got to wondering why the defense lawyer was stuck on asking everyone if some of the grocery items that had been stolen were given to the defendant and/or to his fiancé. The defendant had to have told his attorney that that happened. Which was a blatant lie, obviously. That made me not think too kindly of the defendant and furthermore it made me feel like he was not as innocent or remorseful as he was being made out to be. If it was concocted by his lawyer… well, that’s why you never use a court appointed attorney. Note to self…
The state rested on the accounts of the store manager and the police officers testimony. The defense only called one witness – the defendant. And here’s where the defendant deserved a Tony Award. I mean… really quite brilliant in his ignorance. By the end of it, I felt sorry for the guy but was not interested in leniency. The 9 males and 4 women as juror selections were becoming overwhelmingly clear to me at this point. But all the defense needed was 1 juror to buy it and to either hang the jury or at the very least make them compromise to a lesser sentence so as to not hang the jury on such a small theft case.
The state rested and enter the defendant’s moment of glory. The defense lawyer called the defendant to the stand.
He was a Hispanic man and if I had to guess, I would say he was easily in his late 50s. He was wearing a decent suit that didn’t fit as if it were anything well made. It didn’t surprise me that this man most likely has never owned a suit. He was missing several of his bottom teeth. I couldn’t tell if any were missing from the top. When he spoke, he did not have a Spanish accent. He didn’t have an accent at all. He was at times hard to understand because of his poor usage of the English language and what almost sounded like a slight speech impediment. I could not deduce if it was in fact an impediment or rather him talking around his missing teeth. It wasn’t significant to anything really, but it did successfully make you feel that much sorrier for the guy.
The defendant was sworn under oath and took the stand. Before the defendant even stated his name for the court, he began to cough slightly and clear his throat. His lawyer addressed him informally asking him if he needed something to drink.
Now here’s where if this was a movie or Broadway play, some unseen narrator would have said – and here’s where the tap dance begins.
The defendant says to his lawyer – No sir. Thank you though. I just have Diabetes and it makes my throat dry sometimes. I’ll be fine.
Ok, now in my head, I start to go… whhhhhat? That was an awfully convenient way to drop that in without having to outright ask about his health. If he had, I think it would have been a lot easier for the people on a jury to say – ok, really? They’re playing the “I’m sick” card – feel sorry before I even state my name. That’s some balls. Audacity, really. But ok, I guess you have to use what you have and make it work. If he even really had diabetes… I’ll never know.
His lawyer then asks him to explain what happened on July 1st 2009 when he was arrested at Fiesta on theft charges.
The defendant begins…
I haven’t been a good man. I have been an even worse father.
(At this point, he tears up, and stumbles through the rest of his recount pausing at moments to regain his composure, cry a little more, burry his face in his hands, and ask for tissues before continuing through his testimony. And truly, it was sad to watch – I’m not heartless, but I am fair.)
Over the last 5 years things have just gotten progressively worse. I have a job. I’m a truck driver. I make about $300 a week, when the work is steady. Right now, my fiancé and I are living in a motel paying rent week-to-week. Five years ago, my mother died. I never really recovered from that. It’s all been down hill from there. I have been trying to figure out a way to get my life back on track. I wanted to be a better father to my children. That’s when I had the idea to go to Fiesta and steal some food so that I could throw a small 4th of July barbeque for the kids. You know, to start over, fresh. It was a really dumb idea. I know it was wrong, but I still did it and I am willing to accept any punishment that I receive for my actions.
His lawyer starts to dig in deeper. He asks him to elaborate on how exactly it was that he came to the idea of stealing food from Fiesta in the first place.
The defendant says (still whimpering, crying) – I was next door at my neighbors place. We’d been drinking pretty heavily. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. I came up with the idea to try and have the kids over and start becoming a better dad. To be a person in their lives.
Lawyer – How’s your health as it stands right now?
Defendant (in almost a whisper) – Cancer. *then he paused, put his head in his hands and cried very hard*
>>I wasn’t even sure if I had heard him right? Did he say he has cancer now?
Defendant (after regaining some composure) – It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have done what I did. It was wrong and I will take any punishment I am given.
Lawyer – Did you say you have cancer?
Defendant – Yes. I have cancer. I was diagnosed with it back in February of 2009. I haven’t done anything about it because I have been trying to work and deal with all my diabetes doctor’s appointments. Soon enough, I was missing a lot of work, which I could not afford. I have no idea what stage I am even in right now?
Lawyer – Are you getting treatment in jail currently?
Defendant – Well sir, I had tried. I was supposed to be seeing a doctor, but they never took me to a hospital of any kind. They didn’t do my blood work and I felt like they were not interested in helping me. The other day, they said they were going to take me back to the doctor. I signed a sheet saying that I refused medical care telling them that the doctors they were sending me to were not helping and I was done with all of that. I later found out, that they had planned on taking me to Parkland to get tested and assessed. When I heard that, I tried to remove my refusal of medical treatment, but it’s a long process to do that. I have been in jail since July and I have not been treated for the cancer.
>>Ok, for the record – as the defendant was saying all of this, the judge laughed. He laughed so hard he was red in the face. He was laughing in total shock and dismay that this guy was even saying what he was saying. The states attorneys looked as if the Cancer proclamation was news to them too; hearing it for the very 1st time.
The defense lawyer got the point pretty quickly and steered the defendant in another direction. He wanted the defendant to start talking about the computer classes he had been taking while he was in jail this last time awaiting this trial.
Defendant – I have been taking computer classes and getting certifications. I wanted to better myself this time. I wanted to come out a better person. I wanted to turn my life around. The idea was to learn computers so I could buy one for my truck. So I could keep better track of my routes and loads, etc. I had hoped that when I was done serving this sentence that I would be able to buy my own truck. Be my own boss. Make a change.
>>Yeeeeah, right. Dude, you’re stealing $100 worth of groceries. You aren’t buying your own truck when you get out of here. Really?! Good Lord, this was getting out of control.
The defense lawyer asked a few more questions here and there that he knew would provoke tears and lengthy pauses so that his client could gather himself before continuing. And the honest truth of it all is that I believed some of what this guy had to say. I really did. I felt badly for him. Like he’d been dealt a bad hand and was making one bad decision on top of another. I don’t know if he was really sick with diabetes or cancer as no one proved it or to its contrary. Nonetheless, something happened to this guy. What? I wasn’t exactly sure. I wasn’t too naive to know that what he was telling wasn’t the whole story. There was a big part of me that felt like this guy knew exactly what he was doing and was attempting to milk the system. I, however had no evidence of that… yet.
After the defense was through, the defendant was turned over to the state for questioning. And here’s where all the warm and fuzzy feelings came to a screeching halt. The state’s attorney had zero sympathy for this guy. Almost to the extent that he’d seen and dealt with this guy before – possibly several times. I wasn’t sure yet as he hadn’t really asked any deep revealing questions, but his tone and demeanor was indicative of annoyance of having to be at this trial in the 1st place.
The states attorney then cuts the wound a little deeper. He shows the jury and the court 7 documents. Each of the 7 documents were prior arrests and guilty convictions for theft by the defendant stemming from 2007 to the current charge from July 1st 2009. In each offence, the defendant was caught stealing groceries at or around the $100 value mark. This is where the state explained to the defendant that repeat offenses of theft become felony charges, and that was why we were here today. He asked the defendant if he understood that and he said he did. I more think that it was the states way of letting the jury know why such a “small” offense was being seen in a felony court instead of a civil court.
The states attorney pressed into each offense and the repercussions of each offense. The 1st offense that was brought to felony court was in 2007. The defendant received a fine and 2years probation. He didn’t even make it off of probation before he was arrested for theft again. When he was arrested the 2nd time, they revoked the probation and sentenced him to the minimum sentence at that time of 120days in jail. Each offense there after, the defendant would claim guilt at the last minute, and offer the sentence up to a selected jury – a lot like the jury I was now sitting on. For the remaining 6 offenses, the defendant had received the minimum sentence of somewhere between 120days to 180days.
After the defendant readily acknowledged all those previous offenses with little coaxing, the states attorney asked him – when is enough, enough? The defendant resorted to his normal response of – I was wrong and I am sorry. I will accept any punishment that this jury sees fit. –When you think about it, this is really a non-response.
The states attorney asked the defendant if he knew about resources like Salvation Army that could help people in his situation; to give people an option to not steal.
Defendant (and here’s where my sympathy hit the edge of a 3million mile cliff) – Yeah, I know about those options. I have tried some before. I just didn’t like them. I didn’t want to use them.
States Lawyer – You knew about them and didn’t want to use them? Are you saying that you feel that stealing someone else’s property is a better solution? The only solution?
Defendant – No sir. I just couldn’t bring myself to ask for the help. I didn’t want to burden anyone.
>> Here’s where the defendant is now playing the – father with pride – card.
States Lawyer – How many people do you feel you have burdened here today, by having to bring this case before a judge?
The defendant offered no verbal response. Instead, he began to cry again muttering something about cancer, being wrong, owning up to it all… I’m not sure what he was saying at that point in time. With his speech impediment or lack of teeth, he was borderline unintelligible.
States Lawyer – Are these 7 offenses that I have presented here today in court the only times you have been arrested?
Defendant – No sir. I was arrested when I was 16.
States Lawyer – For theft?
Defendant – Yes sir, but I was just a kid.
States Lawyer (not even gracing the “kid” comment with a rebuttal) – Have you ever been arrested in other states?
Defendant – No sir.
States Lawyer – You’ve never been arrested in Georgia for larceny?
Defendant – What’s larceny, sir?
States Lawyer – It’s a fancy word for theft.
Defendant – Oh, yes sir. I was arrested for that in Georgia. I didn’t understand what you were asking.
States Lawyer – Can you tell the court about that incident?
Defendant (after a long pause, placing his head in his hands and crying again) – It was just stupid sir. It wasn’t right and I was just stupid. There’s not much more to say about it other than that. I was stupid.
Even though the defendant didn’t even begin to try and answer that question, the states lawyer’s point was made. It’s not about the 7 times you have been arrested in Texas; that we know about, but more-so the fact that this is a pattern not limited to the last 5 years of things going downhill in Texas. The states lawyer didn’t even press him further to give more details and not hide behind a cop-out response. He’d done what he’d come to do and that was discredit all the crying and emotional antics.
States Lawyer – How is it that you want this jury to believe you when you say you’re sorry? That you won’t do this again. How many times and to how many juries have you said that this is the last time? Why are we to believe you this time?
Defendant – This time sir, I am taking classes while I am in here. I want to be a better person when I get out. That’s the difference, sir.
I found that hard to believe. What I did believe is his defense attorney saying – oh shit man. This is number 8 on the theft charges. I’m not sure the crying act will work again this time. We’re going to have to do better than that. We’ll need cancer. How can you argue cancer? You can’t. Yes, we’ll have cancer. OH and you’ll need to take some classes while you are in there. You’ll be in there for a bit awaiting trial you might as well sneak in some computer courses. Oh yeah, yeah… that’s good. This could work.
At one point, while the state was questioning the defendant, the defendant said that he had only tried to steal from Fiesta because he really thought he could get away with it. That it wasn’t until he was caught that he’d even reconciled that the decision was a stupid one. That admission did not sit well with me in the least bit.
The states attorney had a few more questions that were relatively inconsequential but further elaborated the fact that the defendant had no intention of changing his behaviors.
The state then rested and closing arguments began. The defense lawyer was first.
He was as brief in his closing as he was in his opening statement. He leaned on the fact that the defendant was taking classes this time. That the defendant wanted to be better and make a change in his life. He then closed his statement by begging the jury to take mercy on his client and show him some leniency.
The states attorney stood up and without sugar coating one thing reiterated that the defendant was a repeat offender. He nothing short of accused the defendant of being manipulative and calculated in his defense. He brought out the 7 previous convictions and went through each one again. He pressed the fact that the defendant had had minimum sentences for all of his previous convictions. He highlighted that there was an infinite amount of people who had been down in the dumps and had not resorted to theft as the solution. He asked the jury how much did we want to spend out of pocket to let people like the defendant believe that what he was doing was acceptable. He then ended with the line – And really… when is enough, enough?
By 10:38, the decision had been handed over to the jury for deliberation on the sentencing. I felt like the decision was simple and that the deliberation would take nothing more than 1 quick vote and we’d be on our way back to our own lives… work.
How wrong could one person be? The intricacies of a jury’s deliberation to reach a decision agreed upon by 12 people was a whole different story.
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