Okay, NOW I can talk about it

[Kevy Baby]

A cloud over the Kevy/Gus household has been lifted. This has been weighing heavily on us recently.

A couple of months ago, Susan received a Federal Court jury summons. The letter said this was a special summons for a trial that could last up to seven (or more) months. Of course, it did not say much more than that (other than where/when to report).

We are civic (and community) minded people. While we may not relish the thought of spending seven months on a jury, we realize that it is our responsibility as members of the community. On the face, we would not just automatically seek a way out. It's just what we do.

About three weeks ago, she finally went to the Santa Ana (CA) Federal Court. Turns out that for this case, the court had sent out 10,000 jury summons. 214 potential jurors were there that day. They were spread out amongst three court rooms as they listened to the indictments against the four defendants.

It took an hour and 15 minutes just to read the indictments (because there were SO many charges).

Seems the men charged are very bad people. You can read one story I found about them here. These guys are the heads of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. THE heads. The Feds are going after them for arranging and approving many murders from inside of their individual prison cells. These guys are already serving life sentences for previous crimes. Now they are getting charged not only with murder, but racketeering, drug crimes, etc.

To be blunt - this is a scary-assed case!

After her first day, when she found out who the defendants were and what the charges were, she was scared to death. She met me for lunch after she got out and it took the whole of our hour together to stop shaking. After that it was major anxiety time. Mostly for her, but for me as well.

I mean, how could one feel safe as a juror deciding the fate of men who had no trouble arranging murders, both inside and outside the prison walls!

As much as we want to do our part, there was no way that Susan was going to sit on that jury. We would have fled the country if there was no other way out (I am serious about this!).

The good news is that she has been excused as of Tuesday. While she did not (and of course would not) lie on the questionaires and during the interview, she certainly made no effort to conceal certain aspects. Of course she wore a dress that allowed her tattoo to be clearly seen (it runs up her right leg from her foot to currently just below her knee). And she made sure to mention that she practices Wicca and often meets with her Coven (I think it was a question about religion).

But it has made me think: how DO they seat a jury for a trial like this? How could anyone feel safe? We figured that probably there were enough people that planned on writing a book to cash in on the experience. Can they really find enough truly objective jurors that wouldn't be too afraid of the consequences to convict people like this (assuming they are guilty)?

And during either the interview or on the questionaire (I can't remember which she said it was), she was asked about the death penalty. While I am rethinking my pro-death penalty stance (thanks to a post by GD not too long ago that appealed to my pragmatic side), how could you NOT (assuming conviction) give these guys the death penalty? They are ALREADY serving life sentences and they've proven that being in prison has not stopped them from commiting their crimes.

I've still got the heebie-jeebies from thinking about this.