On Wednesday of this past week, I was in court, waiting to finish jury selection for my trial. I was going to be tried with two other people, two men named Brian and Carlos. I say was because on Wednesday morning, Brian arranged a plea bargain for himself and plead out.
Brian was and is a stranger to me. I never met or saw him before arriving in court for pretrial procedures. I know nothing about him except that he was in the demonstration, and that he makes music. He sat outside the courtroom playing with a music making program on a handheld videogame console.
On Wednesday morning, Brian plead no contest to the seven charges against him. As his plea bargain was being arranged, he whispered to Carlos that he was doing this in order to give Carlos and myself a better chance at beating the charges. He said he didn't care about having a record himself, or paying the penalty, as long as someone was able to fight this, and he knew that he didn't have the strongest case.
With that in mind, he stood up and acquired a criminal record, seven misdemeanor convictions for rioting, rout, conspiracy to riot, unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, remaining at a riot, and wearing a mask. He received a three day sentence with credit for the three days he served, a hundred dollar fine payable by May of 2002, 30 days community service, and 3 years summary probation.
It's a hard thing to watch someone, perhaps particularly a stranger, make this kind of sacrifice for you.
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.