Trial Notes

I'm starting to feel back to normal, well, kind of. I'm still behind in my reading for school, and am trying to get caught up on that this weekend. But the whole trial-rush thing appears to be behind me. It was very cool at work yesterday to have so many people tell me "Congratulations" for getting a guilty verdict. I also asked my boss for feedback on my performance, and he only said good things, which pleased me. I called and spoke with the victim in the case and informed him of the outcome. Because some personal information about the victim's life was revealed during the course of the trial, my boss thought doing a press release might embarrass him so thought we wouldn't issue one. On his suggestion, I discussed it with the victim and found out that he is very much in favor of a press release, even if his name is used, because he wants people to know that they cannot do this sort of thing to someone. After relaying that to my boss, it appears that we will issue a press release about this case after sentencing.

I took a lot of notes during the trial. Here's some of them, in no particular order:

The case was about computer intrusion- the defendant broke into the victim's email account, changed the password, prevented the victim from accessing his own account. (Then proceeded to do bad things with that account.) Anyway, one of the things discussed was the existence of a file shredding program on the defendant's computer. The file that was shredded was an incriminating image file that the defendant had emailed to people in his effort to ruin the victim. I thought it was highly amusing that on cross exam, the defendant's attorney asked our computer witness what shredding programs are used for, and he answered, "destroying things that people don't want others to know." The attorney suggested some things that might typically be shredded, such as sensitive financial information or porn. The expert agreed and said that there was porn on the defendant's computer, but THAT had not been shredded! LOL

The defendant's attorney called 6 witnesses, including the defendant, during his case in chief. The first of these witnesses was a lady, I'm guessing early 60s, with6-8 inch long fingernails. (I am NOT exaggerating!) The defendant's theory (one of them) was that he was conducting a personal investigation of a variety of crimes in the community, some involving "big names", and he was selectively prosecuted because of this investigation. This witness was there to talk about shenanigans that apparently happened with some lawyer and judge, in relation to a criminal case involving her son.

This son was another one of the witnesses. The crime he was involved with? Child molestation. He had apparently just gotten out after serving 6 years. Nice huh? Nothing either of these 2 said had anything to do with the crime the defendant was charged with here. It was all about this whole other conspiracy thing going on the side.

The defendant himself did the most damage to his case. He told so many blatant lies and got caught. One that I caught was this- during a search of his home, a document that had been printed out from a web site was found. He claimed that it was used to investigate the victim for some misbehavior in a certain case. That case was in 1999. I noticed the page was printed out in 2001. We asked the defendant to verify that date, which he did. And no explanation was ever given. Very bad for him.

There had also been a deposition in an earlier case in which both the defendant and the victim were present. At some point, the victim became aware that the defendant had a loaded weapon on him at the time. When asked about it, the defendant's reason for why he had the weapon with him at the time was because the opposing party was known to carry a gun as well, and he feared she might try to kill him. So, of course, we asked him, what was he expecting? To have a shoot out with her right in the middle of a crowded law office?

The defendant admitted he was "investigating" the victim. There had been some murdered prostitutes in the area, and in his effort to tie the victim to the crime, he claimed to have obtained the shoeprints and cigarette butts of the victim. When we inquired HOW exactly he did this, he said he paid some local homeless people to help him. Ok, can you say CREEPY?!?

The defendant apparently kept all his notes about his "investigation" written in some code. He claims this notes were taken in the search of his home and never returned. He refused to answer a question about what languages he knew, because he feared this would allow his notes to be interpreted. What a freak!

Before the judge announced his verdict, he spent about a half hour going through all of his findings. In the end, he said the defendant was an "intellectual vigilante" and that there was no reasonable doubt that the defendant was the one who had committed this crime. Considering it was a petty offense for a computer crime, it was a fascinating case that ended up involving violence, murder, bribery and sex. Sounds like a good one for movie of the week....