Trans/plant/portation

The twelve members of the jury walked back into the deliberation room, after we’d handed over our verdict and individually attested that we voted freely and according to the instructions from the court.

“Did you see his face,” asked one juror, meaning the defendant.

“He looked like the weight of the world came off his shoulders,” answered a juror. Kiffen was her name.

The mason grumbled. “He looks like he dodged a bullet.”

Soon thereafter the judge came into our room. He’d said he had a quick question for us, but we peppered him with ours first. They came out all in a barrage—why didn’t we hear from Grumpy and Stretch? why isn’t Officer Tony’s dashboard camera working? why was the testimony so vague? Did we just let a guilty man go free? What did you think about his guilt or innocence?

He tried to answer them in turn. He looked much smaller standing in front of us instead of occupying his perch above us, and his robes looked like they could smother him.

“Nobody can find Joaquim (Grumpy) or Stretch,” he said, looking like he was trying not to sound dismissive. “If we could have located them, we would have brought them in for questioning.”

Juror number 4—the woman who had sat in front of me the whole trial—asked why Stephanie wasn’t coached to be more assertive on the stand.

“Ms. Adele was brought here by officers, as a material witness. The prosecutor had to put out a warrant to get her here, and she stayed at a motel with a guard so that she would testify.”

Well, that explained the very large bailiff who’d accompanied her to the court. Read More…

The criminal justice system in the United States seems to be founded on constraints. Who can get selected to serve on a jury. When the defendant can speak. Who can ask questions, and how those questions must be worded to be allowed in the courtroom. There are also the presumptions—the defendant is innocent until proven guilty, the jurors are presumed to be impartial, the judge is also presumed to be a fair referee in the battle between the opposing sides. Above all it is expected that justice will prevail. But nobody in the average criminal trial defines “justice,” even as they go to pains to map out the boundaries of “reasonable doubt.”

One of the constraints we faced in this trial was that we were not privy to any of the pretrial motions—by definition if an attorney is seeking to exclude evidence on the grounds it would predispose the jury to one side or the other, we cannot know the motion occurred. I suppose in a more metropolitan or populated area ducking the coverage of a trial would be more of a challenge, but in Walla Walla, there has been scarcely a peep about Skyler Glasby or Stephanie Adele leading up to or during the two-day trial. With only the evidence from people’s testimony and four exhibits from the trial in front of us, we looked to the closing arguments for some new revelation that would help us decide who was driving the car during a hit and run earlier this year.

No such revelations came to us. Read More…

I call myself a humorist. I make a piss-poor trade in identifying the funny stuff in the midst of garbage, sadness, strife, etc. I find humor to be life-saving, especially when it bubbles up in the midst of a gender transition, say. So I went into the jury summons process with an eye toward spotting the bits of funny. And somewhat paradoxically, the criminal justice system, even in the tiny universe of Walla Walla, has its side-splitting moments and instances that are absolutely chilling.

It started with a perforated postcard in the mail, back in early April, saying I was on the docket for June 2013. Walla Walla’s Superior Court uses a system in which jurors need to be on call to make an appearance on any given date during the month. Opening up the sealed card, one will find a short questionnaire which is supposed to be mailed back to the court right away. It tells the court if there are dates one can’t serve (I said I’d be out of town after a certain date in June), if one is or is not a United States citizen (Susanne gets out of all her jury duty for being Canadian), a resident of the county, and older than 18. It asks if one can read, speak, and write in English (illiterates need not apply?), and asks things about whether one is currently employed, and if so, what kind of work it is. There were other things on there, but I’ve forgotten them. Read More…

Freecyle in Wallyworld has been interesting of late. One person is currently looking for free “horse, unicorn, and pig decor.” Um, decor? Really? I mean, there is pig kitsch out there, there are tons of plastic horses and ceramic unicorns, I know, because I had them all over my bedroom when I was 9. But decor? I don’t think anything related to any of those beasts could be classified as interior design accessories. And I can only see powerfully bad installations of said horse, unicorn, and pig-related objects. Add to this that the same person is also looking for chicken feed and a working VHS recorder, and I really start to get nervous.

Superior Court for the County of Walla Walla is going to get X-rated as a two-day trial begins on some wretch/letch accused of owning child pornography. I am morbidly fascinated, and I think I may head over there to see how Walla Wallans define such things. I’m not aiming to be the next Truman Capote or Dominick Dunne, but I think it will be interesting also to see what kind of coverage the trial gets here.

Speaking of local coverage, I’m giving a short interview on Monday morning to a reporter from the Union-Bulletin, in advance of the Tranny Road Show coming to town next weekend. I’ll be a local reader, pulling something from my memoir, most likely. I’ll also be interested to see what angles the reporter takes on the show, and if there’s any way to create an article about the event without it becoming a Trans 101 lecture. I’ll be careful with my quotes, I promise.

Finally, the SuperNanny is coming to Walla Walla! Or more precisely, the SuperNanny producers are actively looking for a family in the area so they can do a show here. I’m not sure why they’d pick Walla Walla, of all places. It won’t be easy to get all of their equipment here. But I’ll keep a lookout for the London taxi, cuz of course I’ll be snapping pictures of JoJo and Company if I see them.