Life of Wry

Spent the day here… Yolo County Superior Court, fourth floor, Department 10.

Today was the jury selection phase of a competency trial for the young man who murdered two people in Davis and attempted a third. I borrowed the above picture because I didn’t take any.

It’s a fascinating thing to witness, this justice system.

To be so up-close to this process is near-surreal. It’s somewhat familiar, because TV and movies give us a lot of courtroom drama. But to know the victim, to be seated not 20 feet behind the defendant, to know the judge, to know a prospective juror, to know the local crime reporter, to be sitting among people who are now so very familiar to me… makes it all so very real. Even as the crime — so unfathomably brutal — seems unreal, and the stakes — the death penalty — are so unimaginably dire.

The trial — again, not the criminal trial for the homicides and attempted homicide, but the civil trial to determine whether he’s even competent to stand trial — begins tomorrow morning at 9:00. I will be there, and likely every day of the trial.

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(*) I clearly have not watched enough crime and courtroom dramas, because this term was unfamiliar to me. After hearing it for about two hours, I finally looked it up:

Voir dire: Means “to speak the truth” in French. It refers to the examination of prospective jurors by the judge and attorneys to determine whether the individuals are qualified to serve on a jury in a particular case.