Pam Hartley

----------
>From: [email protected]
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Digest Number 2801
>Date: Mon, Jan 6, 2003, 3:35 PM
>

>> How can someone say "censorship and unschooling cannot exist together" and
>> not remember that having a relative or neighbor tell their kids "If you
>> don't
>> go to school you will never learn to read and never get a job" is harmful
>> to
>> their process and their psyches? Do you let your relatives say just
>> ANYTHING
>> to your children?
>>
>>
>
> Ahh! But I believe the readers are primarily ADULTS and very precocious
> children, who don't need You Sandra to close doors for them!


Actually, what Ned did was just what you're doing: argue boringly and loudly
about things having nothing to do with unschooling, that people are begging
you to get over and move past, instead of contributing something useful to
the meat-of-unschooling threads here.

Pam, finally ready to play again after catching up on real life after 7
weeks of jury duty. <g>

Betsy

** Pam, finally ready to play again after catching up on real life after 7
weeks of jury duty. <g>**

Can people with ADD get excused from jury duty? <g>

I could never concentrate on *anything* for that long. I would be
doodling, staring out the window, twirling my hair.

I pity the poor defendant.

Betsy

Pam Hartley <[email protected]>

> ** Pam, finally ready to play again after catching up on real life
after 7
> weeks of jury duty. <g>**
>
> Can people with ADD get excused from jury duty? <g>
>
> I could never concentrate on *anything* for that long. I would
be
> doodling, staring out the window, twirling my hair.
>
> I pity the poor defendant.
>
> Betsy


This was a really interesting case. Below is an email I sent to
some friends after the trial was over (my apologies for the off-
topicality ;)

Pam
----------


Hello dear ones,

Well. One hardly knows where to start!

My jury duty lasted 7 weeks, ending last Friday, just in time for
me to feel festive for a few days, bury the house in a wash of
tissue paper and bows, and Get Through Christmas. Since
Christmas is, for me, a month-long softly glowing celebration of
tradition, baking and festooning everything including the cat with
ribbons, you can only imagine what Pam's Christmas-on-Fast-
Forward looked and felt like. Joyous like a Roller Coaster. <g>

Jury duty. Everyone whines about it, I spent the 7 weeks utterly
fascinated by the Shakespearean tragedy that had been
enacted. I wonder if all murder scenarios today were foretold by
the Bard? My 11 fellow jurors swore never to sit on another
murder case, I would again in a second.

The play was written thus: Jake Silva, a jealous and abusive
boyfriend (just 18 years old); Renee Ramos, a "cheating"
girlfriend (just 18 years old); the stage is set in a small but
crime-ridden burg and the participants are all members of a
skateboarding and graffiti gang (first lesson learned: one does
not want one's children to cultivate the society of some to most
skateboarders. Who knew?) This gang-of-children had an older
"friend" (where "friend" is defined as "pervert child molester")
who bought the alcohol for their frequent parties. The
skateboarding gang called themselves Grim Crew.

The prosecutor was an angry veteran who obviously (and one
feels not unreasonably) takes every murder case deeply
personally. He was jovial and Columbo-like towards us jurors,
but turned red-faced and enraged to some witnesses (including
our defendant, on the stand for over 2 days during his defense
testimony). Some of the prosecutor's camp and anger was an
act, but it was an act based on him in reality -- he played up his
natural Columbo-like shenanigans, and waved his arms a bit
more than required in his rages, but it was, at the root, all him.

The defense attorney I actually felt sorry for, where previously I
have had a great deal of contempt, at least at times, for the
species. Hers was a catastrophically difficult task, and I expect
most of her cases are. I am perhaps still naive, but I think the
legitimately not-guilty defendants are vastly outnumbered by the
legitimately guilty. Being a defense attorney seems to me like it
would be like coaching a perpetually-losing sports team. For all
that, she was talented. She and the prosecutor had an obvious
respect for each other. Objections and sidebars were few,
shouting between the attorneys non-existent.

The witnesses often lied and often lost track of their lies. I filled
up 7 notebooks of notes on the trial, and I was not the most
prolific note-taker of the jurors. There was video testimony and
DNA evidence and false trails laid by the defense and leaps to
some facts by the prosecution.

The jury was excellent. There was a great deal of common
sense and little folly. We guarded fiercely those amongst us who
could not help babbling about the case as they walked down the
court hallways. *** and *** were always escorted to lunch and
back by a pack of us, ready to turn the subject as necessary.

The families both attended every day of the trial. We knew them
on sight and they knew us. The courtroom was like a horrific
parody of a wedding with the "bride's" side (the victim Renee's
family) and the "groom's" side (the accused murderer Jake's
family).

Renee's mother was first on the stand, looking sad and very
tired. I imagine she has looked that way since her daughter was
murdered over 2 1/2 years ago. Various family members rotated
in and out in supporting her as the days went on -- Renee's
stepfather, Renee's grandmother, Renee's aunt.

Jake's stepmother was there every day, with various supporters.
Jake's father was seldom in the courtroom -- one reason was
that he was a defense witness and could not be present until
after his testimony, but even after that he was mostly absent. He
is a small man, physically dwarfed by his young, strong son. He
looked bewildered, and his testimony was confused. He was too
honest to lie on the stand and too terrified for his son to tell the
truth. I felt even worse for him than I did for Renee's mother.

The crime scene photos were as bad as you can imagine.
Renee was gang-raped and beaten and strangled, three
different strangulations with accompanying marks, including the
final strangulation that killed her. It was 2 to 5 days before they
found the body. The prosecution, in submitting photos to us on
the jury, arranged the order of one set to: Renee's school photo,
showing a pretty blond girl about a size 5. Then the four boy-men
and man implicated in her rape. Then the worst of the crime
scene photos of Renee. I wonder if the prosecution really
thought that anyone on our jury would not notice and resent the
tactic?

In spite of the lying witnesses, in spite of the prosecution's heavy
hand, we went into the jury room knowing what had happened
without much to talk about. I was elected foreperson (yes, you
can all smile here, I know you never doubted it. :) We took a poll
on the most serious of the three counts, the murder, and came
to 11 guilty and one undecided.

The undecided was ***, a young man who was the conscience
of the jury. I will be grateful to him forever for bringing up every
tiny possible doubt he had and making all of us carefully
examine it. By the time *** had finished with his last concern, and
had gone over with the rest of us the evidence that answered
each concern, we were a sad but resolute body.

Jake Silva is now 20 years old. He has been in prison since a
few months after Renee's murder, when he was arrested, and
he will now be in prison for the rest of his life. Not one of us
enjoyed sending him there, but not one of us would do it
differently for the world.

There were bright spots -- our judge liked us because we were
attentive, we liked him because he was so fair in the courtroom,
and looked after our comfort. Our main bailiff was the nicest man
in the world and fussed over us like a hen. I carpooled with
another juror, an 80-year-old world traveler who wanted to be a
race car driver in her youth. I closed my eyes a lot as we drove to
court each day. ;)

I'm glad it's done.

Pam

Helen Hegener

At 3:59 PM -0800 1/6/03, Pam Hartley wrote:
>Pam, finally ready to play again after catching up on real life after 7
>weeks of jury duty. <g>

Hey Pam! Good to see you here again! Wondered where you zipped off to...

Seven weeks? Isn't that a bit long? Was it a special case or
something? (Or are you not allowed to talk about it?)

Helen, who's somehow *never* been selected for jury duty, but is curious...

Tia Leschke

>
> Seven weeks? Isn't that a bit long? Was it a special case or
> something? (Or are you not allowed to talk about it?)

There are a couple of cases coming up in BC that are expected to last for
two years! I can't even imagine taking that long out of my life.
Tia

[email protected]

In a message dated 1/6/03 9:30:28 PM, pamhartley@... writes:

<< I carpooled with
another juror, an 80-year-old world traveler who wanted to be a
race car driver in her youth. I closed my eyes a lot as we drove to
court each day. ;) >>

So you were making the 80 year old drive?
Was there a third in this carpool?

Sandra
who forwarded your jury report to a friend of mine who is the assistant DA in
charge of violent crimes here--he will LOVE it.