Martin's Visiting

Currently, the Martin's are in town.
Looking forward to the Sommer's coming soon!

t'was a snowy night in Georgia....

Yep, it did the unthinkable; it snowed. It was snowing on and off all day yesterday before and during church, but none of it stuck to the ground. We woke up to a bit of accumulated snow this morning though. I'd say at least a good 1/32". :-)
OK, so it was just a dusting, but imagine my surprise when I looked out the window this morning. Not to worry, it didn't cross the threshold that causes sheer panic on the streets. I'm certain the commute will take longer than usual today due to slick roads, but people aren't mobbing the grocery stores to stock up on milk and bread.
-Matt

Kitchen

Well, we're almost finally, sorta ready to let Home Depot run with it. There's an extremely high likelyhood that the kitchen will be in some sort of disrepair when you all come visit in March. I don't remember when exactly in March. Anyway, we're headed to HD in a minute to finalize some stuff. Then, their contractors, Frame-to-Finish will come out and do the final measure. After that, we'll order the cabinets and start rolling with it. We're going to do the demolition work. The plan is to do the floors ourselves too. However, I don't want to buy another whole set of specific tools for hanging cabinets that I'll never use again. Not to mention, they'll be able to get it done in like 2 days, where there's no telling how long it would take me.

It worked

Matt the link finally worked this time. I don't know why it was giving me trouble the first couple of times. You missed a good old Michigan snow storm and two day power outage, fun , fun, fun.

Jury Duty III

So, anywho, back to the jury duty topic. So, first we hear from the arresting officer. A policewoman. So, she talks about how the defendant was swerving in her lane. An odd choice of words I thought, since she was being charged with failure to maintain lane along with the DUI and having incorrect plates. Well, she see's her swerving, pulls in behind her and runs the plate. The plate comes back belonging to a different model car. So, she pulls her over. The officer also make the comment that she did not give her a ticket for having the wrong plate because when she checked her ID, it matched that of the plate and she figured there was probably some kind of mixup at the DMV. So, this is also odd, since the defendant was being charged with both. (We find out later that the prosecutor added those charges, which were dropped right as we come in to hear the closing arguments). So, the officer talks about how she had her do 5 different field sobriety tests and had her blow in an alkasensor (breathalyzer) which showed she had alcohol in her system (but did not say what amount-we find out after the case is decided that that is because field breathalyzers are not admissable in court due to their inherent lack of sensitivity and susceptibility to poor accuracy in some environments).
She said her tests showed that the women was under the influence to the point of being a "less safe driver" and placed her under arrest. Well, there were many specific things she listed as pointing to this conclusion that involved the woman's field sobriety tests.

Well, then we watch the video (from the cruiser's camera). This will be waaaay too long if I go into detail, so I'll summarize. Basically, the vast majority of the things the officer pointed out were not that big of a deal. For example, she told us she had to tell the woman to sit down on the bumper of the cruiser 3 times before she comlied, which show a lack of focus and comprehension. Well, what I saw is the cop point over at the bumper from 15 ft. away (couldn't make out the words). The woman walks over the the car and stands next to it. The officer come over and asks her to sit on the bumper. The woman then sits down on the top bar of the push bumper. The officer grabs something from her car and when she gets back, tells her, no, sit on the bottom part of the bumper. The woman does.

Another example is when the cop tells her to stand with her left foot in front of her right and begins to give her instructions on how to do the heel to toe walk and tells her not to start until she's finished giving her the directions. While she's giving the directions, the woman breaks the stance and begins to stand normally. When the cop is done, she takes 10 steps directly towards the cruiser (into the camera) and hesitates, ever so slightly on the 7th step. She then turns around and does 10 steps back, perfectly. The cop thought it was a big deal that the woman turned around on one foot instead of taking several small steps when turning, as instructed. Now, I heard the instructions myself and it would never have occured to me to take the small steps. It just didn't seem to be that big of a detail. The cop never stopped and said, now this is crucial that you take several small steps. I probably would have just spun around and took 10 steps back even stone-cold sober.

So, there were several other similar details, none of which seemed to tell me that the woman was unsafe behind the wheel. Infact, at one point, the woman drops and earring and quickly bends over and picks up this tiny little earring. She doesn't stumble or fumble around for the earring as she's picking it up, and this is at night, on the side of a highway, under pressure, with cars whizzing by at 80mph on I-285. Anyway, the women gets arrested. Then, when she's told that she would be taken to the police station where she would be asked to take the Intoxilyzer 5000 nt breath test, which she can refuse, but if she does, her license will automatically be suspended for at least 1 year. Well, she asks a few intelligent questions about regarding this, being that she's a postal carrier and her license is critical to her job. The policewoman made it out like this was another sign that she was intoxicated. To me though, she didn't sound slurred and carried on a coherent, intelligent conversation.

So, she's taken to the station and takes the test. She blows a 0.074. So, like I said earlier, she's under the 0.08 limit for a per se DUI, and is then charged under the "less safe" provision of the law. Granted, this is like 2+ hours after she left the B-day party she said she only had 1 20oz. Corona, so she's pretty much a liar about having one drink. But that's not what we were judging her on. We were there to determine, from the facts, if she was indeed a less safe driver.

She was operating a vehicle. That's a fact. And, yes, she was under the influence of alcohol. That's a fact. Was is to the extent that she was a less safe driver? I sure didn't think so. I was worried going into the jury room for deliberations that I would have to argue my point. Well, one lady suggested that we immediately take a poll and see what we were all thinking. 1st guy says he thought the case was tried poorly on both sides and he didn't think she was guilty. Phew, at least one sensible person on my side. Then the next lady goes. Succintly, "no, she's not guilty." Then it's my turn. "Not guilty," and I list a few reasons why I think so. Then the next lady says she agrees. "Not guilty." Another guy say's he has concerns that she lied about how much she had to drink, but didn't really feel like the prosecution proved their case. Essentially, a probably not guilty. Then the last lady says, "not guilty. So, we talk it out with the gentleman who was having misgivings. Essentially though, it came down to the fact that he definitely had reasonable doubt that she was less safe. He wasn't certain. So, we were in agreement, filled out the paperwork and called the bailiff.

We were called back and gave the findings to the judge who read the verdict. Not guilty...plus about 10 minutes of other legalese. Enough to put you to sleep. Anyway, I feel like justice was served.

I do understand the cop's "need," if you will, to arrest the lady and take her in. Basically, from the cops perspective, she knows the lady has had at least 1 beer. She told her as much. She didn't know for sure though if that was all. So, there's a lot of pressure on the cop. If she lets the lady go and she hits another car and kills a family of 5 two minutes later, that's a lot to live with. So, as I see it, as soon as the cop smelled alcohol on the lady's breath, she was going to jail. End of story. However, after the prosecutor got a hold of it and watched the tapes, etc. I think he should have dropped it and not wasted everyone's time and money.

It was an extremely informative experience for me though. I did enjoy being involved in our legal process. Plus, I learned a lot about DUIs. For more info on that see the following link:
http://www.duiguy.com/stop.htm
It talks about what will happen when you are pulled over and what you should do. Basically, when you're first pulled over, you are not required to, and shouldn't, tell the officer anything other than your name and address and provide him with your license and registration. You don't have to take any field sobriety tests, period. At all. You can refuse them with no penalty. According to the link I provided above:

You are probably wondering how you politely decline to answer any questions or take any roadside tests. The solution is surprisingly simple; if you tell the officer that you will be glad to answers any questions or take any roadside tests as long as you have an attorney present, you have just refused without refusing. No penalty attaches at this point because you have no legal obligation to answer any questions (except as they pertain to your identity and address) or perform any roadside tests including the Alcosensor.

However, upon refusal, you will in all likelyhood be arrested for DUI. This guy even provided a handy little "Driver's Rights" wallet card that you can print out that details all your rights.
Here's the direct link to that: http://www.duiguy.com/myrights.htm

Anyway, being a juror was interesting and oddly, kinda fun. I'm just glad it only lasted one day.
-Matt