Life of Wry

Exactly two years ago and two days apart, David (above) and Karim were stabbed to death on the streets of Davis by a young man, undiagnosed at the time, with schizophrenia. Carlos had suffered a psychotic break from reality, perhaps triggered by having been suspended from UCD for academic reasons, and went on a killing spree, guided by demons he didn’t know he had.

After two years, Carlos’ competency to stand trial has been restored and all the legal hoops have been jumped through. Today was day #1 of the trial. The trial will be divided into two parts: a guilt phase, followed by a resolution on his insanity plea. Today was all administrative proceedings. The rest of this week, and likely all of next will be about jury selection. By mid-May, the substance of the trial commences. All told, they are expecting about a ten-week process.

This morning, Maria learned that she will be called as a witness for the prosecution. As a witness, she is not allowed in the courtroom until after her testimony. So she’s going back to San Francisco for a couple weeks. Sure would have been nice if she’d known that!

In any case, I’ll plan to go to at least some of the voir dire over the next couple weeks… and then plan to see as much of the trial as possible before we leave for Europe.

Note: the above photo was taken in April 2013 during the construction of the Compassion Corner Earthbench. It was taken by Brennan and showed up in my Facebook memories today.