Dury Juty: Day 3
A mind-numbing descent into the American judicial system.
Trigger Warning: The following contains depictions of extreme violence.
I wake up feeling a little more settled than the previous couple of days. Something about having mentally committed to this process is strangely calming, and makes the whole experience easier. After a handful of hectic mornings, I'm finally able to slow down and enjoy my breakfast and coffee at home. My car starts right away and I find easy parking in the Walt Disney Concert Hall lot before making my way down six blocks and into the courthouse.
Each morning there seems to be less people in the building than the day before. Today, everything is almost tranquil, as if there is less energy swimming around. I've started to develop rituals in order to have a makeshift routine each day — my way of passing the time and inwardly surviving the intensity of the experience. I take a drink of water from my plastic bottle before walking inside. I use the same bathroom to the left of the metal detectors in the entrance hall, washing my hands both before and after each session as some sort of figurative (and literal) cleanse. I’ve decided to only take the stairs now, instead of the elevator. This all serves as abstract preparation for the ferocity that the day is sure to bring.
I reach the 11th floor, and spot the same lawyer from yesterday sitting on a red ceramic bench with a new client, a middle-aged man. They are discussing something gang-related, someone running away from the cops. They speak loudly and brashly — their conversation echoing throughout the entire hall. I see another lawyer and client in a heated exchange. The client says he was wrongfully fired from his workplace and that they had “no right to do that to me!” I marvel at how little privacy exists in this place. The daily trauma so common and expected that there’s no need to hide it, or to save the dialogue for a more discreet location.
Back in the courtroom, we pick up exactly where we had left off. The boyfriend of the victim is on the stand when we enter, donning the same Ghostface Killah outfit. It's the worst day of evidence by far. The DA hooks up his computer to the courtroom speaker system, and we’re forced to listen to the 911 call that was made at the time of the shooting. It lasts for over four minutes. We are handed transcripts to follow along — the boyfriend screaming, the 911 officer trying to ascertain where they are and what is happening. Over and over again we hear the boyfriend shouting, “I got you! I got you, baby! Keep breathing! I got you! Don't choke, keep breathing!” The chaos and horror is only amplified by the fact that the boyfriend has to relive these moments again, this time with all of us spectators in the room.
I start crying as I'm listening, overwhelmed by the darkness and brutality of it all. We're then shown police cam footage of the victim bleeding out in the front seat of the car as LAPD works frantically to keep her alive. The chest camera indicates an altercation between the victim's brother and the boyfriend in the background. He slams the boyfriend to the sidewalk, “How the fuck you let my sister get shot!” Next, multiple autopsy photos are laid out, detailing the bullet wounds in her face and arm — each image larger and more graphic than the one before.
At one point during questioning, the boyfriend is asked about the minutes leading up to the shooting in excruciating detail, culminating with him being asked to identify the killer. He fumbled and paused, delaying by thirty lengthy seconds that felt like forever. Finally he muttered the name of the defendant into the microphone. The DA asked him why he hesitated, and he replied, “Street code.”
It's the Defense's turn now. The boyfriend is growing frustrated in cross-examination, having to answer many similar questions. His agitation adds to the heightened tension in the room, as visceral details continue to unfold and new layers of context are uncovered. After another fifteen minutes, the defense rests and the boyfriend is allowed to leave. I don’t see him again the rest of the trial.
It's only later that I begin to wonder, where is everyone? There has been no family, no friends, nothing from either side. This strikes me and feels significant somehow. Over ten people directly involved in this incident, and no one shows, not even out of revenge or spite or hatred?
We break for lunch, all of us visibly shaken from two packed hours of testimony and evidence. I feel dissociated from my thoughts, and mechanically move through the cafeteria ordering the same sandwich and chips, sitting in same seat. Later, as we're waiting to go back in, one of the jurors (an alternate) has fallen asleep with his head angled awkwardly against a marble column. Another juror struggles to wake him. Startled, he hurries to his feet and begins rushing towards the courtroom before realizing his leg has fallen asleep. His fall is broken by another juror walking next to him.
We take our seats. There’s all sorts of shuffling between the rows of chairs, as everyone is still figuring out the most effective way to get to our numbered places. I take in the room again and notice a bright plastic bookend sitting on the main lawyer's desk at the center of the room. It is about a foot tall — a rectangle of bright aqua blue with a giant smiley face cut into its side. It resembles the logo on a can of Pringles. The lightheartedness in the context of such a grizzly day reads wrong, another reminder of how routine this must feel for the people working here day in and day out. This is just another case, another murder in an endless sea of violence and victims. Why not have something flippant to brighten your day? It’s quite menacing to stare into the bookend’s triumphant optimism while listening to the sound of someone choking on their own blood.
The next witness is a firearms expert. He has the look of a young Colonel Sanders — the trademark goatee and mustache combo with thick, dark-rimmed glasses. He details how the bullet hit the car, the close range of the firearm at the time of the bullet leaving the gun, what angle the shooter would have been at to justify the entry point of the bullet. This all seems self-evident and beside the point. No one is arguing if there was a murder or who did it. It's all been captured on video. The DA concludes his questions and when given the opportunity, the defense has nothing further.
The lead detective from the LAPD is put on the stand. He had been the one handling the murder investigation, and has been sitting with the DA for most of the trial. He seems like the kind of character you'd expect from TV shows and movies. A little unkempt and sleep deprived, with a casual coldness in opposition to the gruesome specifics of the case. He points out micro details in each of the photos. The placement of the car, the fact that the windows were rolled up, the bullet casings on the ground, and so on. He takes us through all the ways that investigators gather evidence, and the DA has him specify as many examples as he can.
For the first time, we're shown an image of a black switchblade in the front seat of the car, a piece of evidence that the defense hones in on. My previous theory of a self-defense claim is now confirmed, and after a few additional questions, the defense rests.
The final witness from the DA is a medical examiner who is almost identical to Dwight Schrute. It's the delivery and cadence of his voice, his odd turns of phrase. Multiple times in response to specific details around the autopsy report, he turns and asks the judge, “If I may, I would like to refresh my memory.” After a brief review of his documents, he adds in a deadpan monotone, “My memory is refreshed.” He repeats the same routine five more times.
The autopsy photos are returned to the screens as the DA asks the medical examiner question after question. Where did the bullets enter? From what angle? Can you point out exactly how the bullet traveled through her brain and into the upper side of her mouth?
My eyes start wandering the room again, in an effort to look at something that isn't a dead body. I can’t help but think about the design of this building. The scale of the lobby and courtroom seem designed to make you feel small and insignificant. You are in a place of power and you should feel intimidated. I contemplate how this is one of the last bastions of American society that is still somehow largely unchallenged. There are mistrials and appeals, corrupt lawyers and judges, but the whole of the system itself, the foundation, is accepted on principle and mostly exists uncontested. This is in stark contrast to how so many other “functional” aspects of government (that have been taken for granted since the country's beginning), have been in upheaval. I wonder how long this system will last before the pitchforks start coming for it, too. For now, while I’m in the midst of it all, I find it eerily calming to know that this level of predictability, impartiality and order still exists somewhere in our society largely untouched — that there is one place in the world where you can be sure what the rules are, and everyone, for the most part, has to play by them.
We watch the surveillance video yet again, only this time the footage is more zoomed out. My eyes move away from the scene of the incident to the foreground of the screen. The video now reveals the entire street, and I notice two young girls skateboarding back and forth in a driveway. They don't even flinch when the shooting happens. Not even a quick glance down the road after the fact. They only stop once the cops show up five minutes later, making them move out of the frame of the camera. These adolescent girls innocently skating a hundred yards away while their neighbor is executed in the middle of the afternoon, in a silver car, underneath a lone palm tree.
On my way back home, traffic is stopped earlier than usual on the freeway. I'm on the 110 near the tunnel headed towards Pasadena, right where it splits off to join the 5. I look over my left shoulder and see the entire hillside in flames — two firetrucks and a dozen fireman battling the blaze. It seems symbolic, but it's been a long day and I'm tired of looking for symbolism.