My verdict came back this morning, after 7 days of jury deliberation.
The jury came back with an acquittal on count 3, conspiracy to riot, and they hung on everything else.
They had one juror who refused to deliberate. They barely got him to agree on the conspiracy charge, and he wouldn't agree to anything else. The irony here is that conspiracy was the only serious charge of the lot of them, and it should make the case next to impossible for the prosecution on retrial. All their evidence was from the conspiracy, and their evidence of me says simply that I was there. With the conspiracy charge cleared, they can't bring that evidence in, and thus their case should evaporate. I say should because this should have evaporated back in summer, it should have been dismissed at my arraignment hearings, it should have been dismissed in pretrial, and it should have been dismissed at the halfway point.
My father, who is also an attorney, is certain that they won't bother retrying something this petty. California is in the midst of a budget crisis, right? I think I'm beginning to see why. My attorney is certain that they will actually retry me, probably with my codefendant, who was acquitted of everything except failure to disperse, on which the jury also hung.
My next trial is scheduled for January 9. I am going to have to miss more work, fly down to LA again, and wait while the prosecution tries to convince another 12 strangers that my presence at the scene constitutes guilt, without any other evidence.
To see how this started, please see my daylog for May 3, 2001.
For difficulties in dealing with court dates, please see my daylog for May 7, 2001.
The charges against me are listed on May 10, 2001.
For an account of my first arraignment hearing, please see my daylog for May 24, 2001.
For an account of my bad dealings with my codefendants, please see my daylog for May 30, 2001.
For an account of my second arraignment hearing, please see my daylog for June 22, 2001.
For an account of my decision to go to trial, please see my daylog for October 31, 2001.
For an account of pretrial matters and my journey to LA, please see my daylog for November 17, 2001.
For an account of jury selection, please see my daylog for November 19, 2001.
For an account of my codefendant's plea bargaining, please see my daylog for November 24, 2001.
For an account of my testimony, please see my day log for December 5, 2001.