Crime and Punishment

Starting a week ago, I was assigned to a jury for a case at 26th & Cal, that ominous address for the Criminal Courts building on the south side of town right next to Cook County Jail. A convicted felon, who looked fairly ordinary to me, was accused of owning two guns kept in the bedroom closet of the apartment of his former girlfriend and their two grade school age children. Illinois law says that convicted felons can not have guns. The girlfriend was the only defense witness. She said they were no longer a couple and he only visited occasionally to see his children. She had assorted men's clothing hanging prominently in her closet and said that they were donations from friends and family for a garage sale - even though they had been there for a year since she moved there. He did go into the bedroom and lock the door for an hour or more once in awhile, which she thought was "odd."

I thought the girlfriend presented herself very well - dressed nicely, spoke intelligently, etc. Another woman on the jury, a suburban nurse, also totally bought the girlfriend's story, but several black women on the jury said they almost laughed out loud when they heard about the "garage sale." They said no woman would give up "prime real estate" in her bedroom closet to garage sale clothes - for a year! That stuff goes in plastic bags in the garage or basement! The more I listened to them, the more I realized I had been taken in. The last straw was the information that the felon's current address was with the "former" girlfriend's parents - hunh. Things just didn't add up.

So, at the same time that I felt foolish for having believed the girlfriend's story at first, I felt sad at having to find the felon guilty of two more felonies (after two days of the trial, the jury voted unanimously for a guilty verdict in less than 2 hours). Three felonies puts a person in the "habitual offender'' class in many states, although I don't know if this case falls under that law. I keep thinking about that guy and what it must be like to realize you will be in prison for a very very long time. One guy said as we were leaving the jury room to go home at the end that maybe we saved a life. One of the guns in the closet was loaded - probably to be used at a moment's notice - and sitting in a hatbox on the closet shelf. How many kids live in places like that?

I won't be able to stop thinking about all of this.