I woke up about 4 AM, maybe a bit earlier. All the stuff I am about to tell you was swirling in my head. I went to bed way too early last night, so don’t think it is lack of sleep that is causing my self-re-examination. But now it is 6 AM, got back from the gym, made coffee and realized that creativity is the only reason for humanity. More about that later.
Spent yesterday picking a jury. Surprised how many people don’t mind saying they cannot be fair. The rejected jurors had no trouble saying they would believe a Police Officer over anyone else even if the judge directs them not to. The other rejected juror was way too smart for the prosecutor to let into a jury. Let me tell you more about the prosecutor later as well.
I don’t much respect the prosecutor, she has not even read her case. So far it seems everyone just want to scare me, to convince me that I am not as good at their job as they are. I was lectured by the judge. After the last juror arrived on the stand and said someone has to be first and someone has to be last. I responded that no one wants to be here LESS than I do. Judge says that was inappropriate, that I will have my chance to address the jury later. I thought it was funny. The juror didn’t get it.
I asked each juror who they knew who owned a small business, if they had ever been arrested, and details about each business and arrest. Several of the jurors were known to me, and all of them were rejected by the judge. One was the wife of a business owner I have known for, maybe, 30 years. I knew that he had been arrested recently for some business dealings but it had not been in the papers. Why should they publish the arrests of business owners…? Only I should be so lucky… Anyway, she had answered questions that she did not know anyone in trouble with the law. I told her I had very recently seen her husband at a restaurant, asked if she remembered any of the the details about the work he had done for me (she didn’t). I remembered everything. Sooo. Finally I muttered, did she know anyone who had been arrested. Long story short, she started crying and the judge excused her.
This morning we have to pick two alternates. And I have to figure how to udate my web site so that I can step up and and write all the hurt, anguish, dispair and hum0r into posterity. The prosecutor does not know, at this time, that the ONLY witness against me is a criminal of national notoriety, the girlfriend of a cop-killer on death row. She does not know and does not care. I don’t think there is any reasoning or thought to the prosecutor’s position. I can’t imagine they have come this far with any plan. They must just be plugging along, following an anonymous play book. But in the mean time I keep going over speeches I will make to the jury.
I asked the prosecutor if she knew her witness yet, she said no. She said it is nothing personal. I said, of course not, smiling, for her it is a job. For me it is my life. She asked each juror if, when they were done deliberating and found me guilty unanimously, they would have trouble saying to my face that I am guilty. Each one that was approved said they would have no trouble doing so.
Oh well, time to post all the documents for the case. I will be scanning and putting up links as time permits. But for now let me hit the shower. As I said above, this is my life, for good or bad, and I have to live my life. One of my imaginary speeches to the jury says I am a lucky man, all three of my children and my two grandchildren live within an hour of this court house. If they put me in prison for a year and a half I will make the best of it, write, excersize, create, and pick up my life again after I get out.
The case is as complicated as it is stupid. It boils down to two questions: 1. Did I lock a door, and if I did lock the door and 2. does locking that door constitute “unlawful restraint” under the law. The law says to be illegal I had to have intended to restrain her. I believe it was Officer Cook who said to me that locking the door constituted restraint. Therefore if I said I locked the door they would arrest me. I answered to go ahead and arrest me. I said I did not say I locked the door (that would be a confession, admission of guilt to the officer, in his mind anyway) but they never took my statement….
All I wanted was for Lisa Meneguzzo http://voices.yahoo.com/lisa-meneguzzo-brian-nichols-other-high-profile-778129.html?cat=17 to leave my shop. My car was packed with stuff for my birthday party and I was leaving for Orlando the following day. There is no way I locked her in my shop. And the police wandered into the shop while I was in Litchfield on my way to the party. They are on the video surveillance. Lisa called them from her own store up the street to make a complaint. She was never restrained for even a second. She wouldn’t leave.
So that is the case. My word against a notorious criminal and the girlfriend of a cop-killer on death row. She said I restrained her, I say she wouldn’t leave. She was long gone by the time the cops arrived anyway. They took her statement, arrested me, and never asked me anything.
Later the documents.
