Down at the Courthouse, Part 3

down at the courthouse part 3

Down at the Courthouse part 3, January 20th, 2016

Last time I was at the Sonoma County Courthouse was in January of 2008. I was there for jury duty and I watched the newly elected president Obama on the TV in the Jury room promising the most open and transparent administration in history. He promised to have every bill being considered by Congress available on the Internet for 60 days for the citizens to peruse before it would be voted upon. He promised to bring our troops home and close Guantanamo Prison.

I wasn’t called up for jury duty and I drove home on a rainy January day my civic duty fulfilled.

Yesterday my wife and I revisited the jury room at the courthouse; room 102J. My wife had been drafted into jury duty by the county.

We awoke before dawn to answer Caesar’s call for an accounting. It was pouring down rain. It was a Pineapple Express deluge from the Mid Pacific Ocean directed at us like a firehose by the El Nino.

We drove carefully in the old Jeep Grand Wagoneer down the very bumpy and rutted Highway 101 ( a third world ill-maintained travel fare ), in the pouring rain as cars whizzed by with lights off. They must be mad!

Sure enough half way to Santa Rosa flashing lights appeared ahead of us as accidents were on both sides of the freeway and we pulled onto the Shiloh Road exit and took Old Redwood Highway to the city.

The Sonoma County Administration Complex is fortunately on the near side of the city; the northern side. It covers a several acres. There’s the county jail, a fairly modern four story structure of orange brick with tiny windows.

There’s the tax assessor’s office and several other low 1960’s designed buildings for some kind of bureaucratic function or other, but where we were going was the “Hall of Justice”.

Oh, yes, they do call it the “Hall of Justice”. That is where the nerve center of the county lives. This is where “justice” and fines and sentences are handed out by judges and juries to the serfs of Sonoma County.

I dropped my wife off at the entrance to the Hall of Justice in the pouring rain so she could make it to the jury room on time. I then drove off seeking a parking place within a mile of the building.

The Hall of Justice was built in 1965 and completed and dedicated on January 15th 1966. The “Sons of the Golden West” put up the plaque. It is a truly ugly building two stories high made of poured concrete and some strange green fiberglass screens covering the sides of the building. The central garden is nice.

My wife walked up to the open entrance and found a group of Hispanics lined up in a line blocking the way. They were mostly Mexicans smoking cigarettes. They were lined up waiting to go through security to the second floor courtrooms wherein no doubt their relatives were being tried in court.

My wife asked the security guard where the jurors were supposed to go and he came out of his station, very kindly he was, and showed my wife the way to go across the open garden area to the 102J jury room on the north side of the building.

Meanwhile I found a place to park the Jeep and walked with my umbrella for ten minutes or so to room 102J and found my wife.

She had already made friends with a very kind woman named Becky from Petaluma. She was in her fifties I’d guess. My wife is named “Debra”.

Debra, “This is my new found friend Becky. She’s been called for jury duty every year for ten years or more.”

Myself, “ I’d change my name.”

Now this elicited a laugh from a few jurors sitting in the area. My timing was impeccable if I say so myself. Good to start with a laugh.

We all got along famously after that.

A black woman in her late thirties wearing a pantsuit of white and black checkered pattern which no doubt fit her better ten pounds ago; got up in front of everyone and gave a little speech and put in a DVD that pointed out how great it was to do jury duty.

There were about 180 people in the room. Prospective jurors dragged into the room by the county in a pouring rainstorm. Most of them were women. They were all white. Now, I’ll repeat that; they were all white.

I looked. They were all white even though Sonoma County is 50% Hispanic, maybe more. There are a few blacks and asians around, but it’s pretty much 50-50 white and hispanic, yet all the jurors were white.

Why? Well, there is this little box you can check when you get a jury summons from the county that lets you out of jury duty if you don’t speak English. I reckon the hispanics check the box. But they end up in court anyway.

The citizens had been called to the Hall of Justice because of a triple murder case in Forestville. It was a drug deal gone bad. The shooter wanted it all. His two ne-er do well accomplices finked on him for lesser sentences. The shooter shot the three drug dealers in the head and took the money, guns, and 100 pounds of marijuana.

He’s up for life without parole so what’s he got to lose? He wants a trial. So for the whole week every day 180 people will be called down to the courthouse to find 12 jurors who don’t know the case and aren’t prejudiced.

I was sitting outside of the jury room on one of those folding wooden chairs like they had in high school back in the sixties. Damned uncomfortable they are. The jury room is a fire trap with only two narrow exits for 200 people.

And suddenly I see the black woman in the tight black and white pant suit come out and talk to a lawyer. He’s white and about 6’ 4” tall. He’s bald and wearing a fancy expensive suit. She tells him that he’s in the right place. Turns out he is part of the District Attorney’s office and the prosecutor in the case.

The prosecutor walks off talking on his smart phone.

Next I see a stenographer show up with his steno machine on a stand and the defense lawyer who is shorter and not nearly as well dressed as the prosecutor. The black women in the tight pant suit tells them to wait because, “He will be coming down any moment.”

Now, she says this in the same breathless manner that a believer would say about the Pope coming to call. This got my attention.

Sure enough in a few minutes the judge shows up with two Sonoma County Deputy Sheriffs by his side for protection. He’s a tall guy about 40 with dark hair and an intelligent smiling face. I think he was bemused by the fact that he was coming to the jury room. He’s used to pontificating from on high on the second floor in his courtroom.

Now, I’m just kinda slouched and sleeping in my uncomfortable folding chair. They ignore me of course. And I pretend to ignore them.

They march into the jury room and shut the door.

After the judge describes the case to the prospective jurors stating all of the charges against the shooter, quite a list; he leaves with his entourage and a 20 page questionnaire is handed out to the folks in the room that takes 20 minutes to fill out.

They want to winnow the jury pool eliminating those who already think the shooter is guilty.

After handing in the quiz they were free to go only to have to come back next Monday to see if Debra and the rest of the jury pool, is released from jury duty.

I’d guess 90% of the cases at the courthouse have to do with drugs. The drug war is a cash cow for the state. The county of Sonoma is the single largest employer in the county with over 4,000 well paid employees.

And the “Hall of Justice” produces the cash to pay them.

But every once in awhile they get a murder case and have to find a way to make it seem like justice is being served in their little fiefdom.

They want a new courthouse of course. They want to add $50 or more to every traffic ticket and fine to pay for it.

I admit I was a bit nervous slouching there in my chair watching two trigger happy sheriff’s deputies with guns and tasers on their hips only a few feet away from me. They kill with impunity. The county just gave out $1.5 million to a citizen who was tasered relentlessly (fortunately he didn’t die).

And the killing of Andy Lopez, a 13 year old, gunned down by a sheriff’s deputy on a sunny afternoon because the kid was carrying a toy gun; well, that will cost us taxpayers at least $7 million. And the sheriff’s deputy who emptied his gun into Andy is still a deputy in good standing.

Oh, yeah, the Hall of Justice is a wonderful place for the county. Not so much for us.

My wife and I drove home. The rain had ended. The sun was out. The road was clear.

Tim McGraw