Jury duty over the past 2+ weeks

[Travis In Austin]

Travis..... Yes I was referring to the Duncan case. It is illustrative of exactly why I feel the system needs re-examination. The crimes were the worst. The man pled guilty. There was tons of evidence including video tapes of him committing the crimes.

Now I will quote you. You say the "case was procedurally complex". Why?

It was procedurally complex because you had the State of Idaho, through it's county attorney, Douglas, bringing 3 capitol murder charges and along with kidnapping charges. At some point, and I don't know when, the Assistant United States Attorney filed federal charges against Duncan for the kidnapping of Dylan and Shasta, and capital murder, seeking the death penatly, for the death of Dylan (Murder in the course of kidnapping). These could have also been charged as Montana State charges, and I did not see anything about whether any delay was cause because Montana and the federal prosecutor were figuring out who was going to do what. Then in the midst of that you had California (Schwatznager took a photo op for this) making demand that he be extradited down to Califonria so they could give him the death penalty down there for a 1997 murder. This is a bad sick individual who wreaked havov in at least four states. It was proceduraly complex because the case was a prosecutor's dream and everyone wanted to get their hooks in him and be a hero by getting the death penalty against an evil monster. It took a lot of guts for your county prosecutor Douglas to put his political asperations aside and put the interests of Shasta first and plead away the death penalty on the state cases.

The compexity is having two cases, one in federal court, one in state court, proceeding at the same time, it is also complicated by the fact that the federal case was filed sometime after the state court case, maybe as much as a year or two later. When you have two cases going it complicates things, which trial is going to go first, witnesses, different defense counsel has to be appointed in the federal case from the state case, etc., etc. It appears to me from reading one article that the a lot of delay in the federal case was caused by the fact that it was filed considerably later than the state case. That means new attorneys have to get up to speed all over again.

The other problem is that in the federal system the defendant cannot "plead guilty" to the death penalty. He can plead guilty to capitol murder, which Duncan did, and then the jury has to hear the evidence and decide whether he deserves the death penalty or not. It was a two week death penalty case, with 3 hours of deliberation, that has to be some kind of world record for the fatest death penalty case of all time. It usualy takes a month just to pick a jury in death penalty case. Most, if not all, of that two weeks was the prosecution's case, you would have to ask them why it took two weeks to put on the case, but it was probably becasue they wanted to see everything they possibly could about this person in order to meet their burden of proof on why he deserved death. Duncan chose to represent himself so there really was no defense. I don't know how it can be more streamlined or efficient than that. Compare it to the last high profile death penalty case, the Petersen case in California, that took months and months. Of course the chances of him being executed in CA are almost zero. I don't know when the last time they executed someone there. It is like I said before, there is a big difference to pleading guilty to capitol murder and then actually getting a jury to give the death penalty. The government has to prove the case is one that the case is appropirate for the ultimate sanction, there is not way to streamline it more than it is now, or to make if more effecient. The goverment is entitled to put on whatever evidence they believe shows that he should be put to death, and the defendant is allowed to put on whatever evidence he/she believes mitigates against that sentence, if any. In the Duncan case, Duncan did not put anything on and argued to the jury that he had no defense to the death penalty and that he had planned on killing more people before he got caught.

What would part would you cut out or skip? Again, the defendant received all of the protections that the constitution entitles him to, he got his trial, allbeit one he didn't even really contest, and they hung 'em. Like I said, this is the worst of the worst, there were not really any factual issues in the case, there was videotape, he was caught in a resturant with the little girl, and he confessed, he plead guilty to everything the law allows him to plead guilty to, he ended up representing himself, and then he told the jury he had no defense. Death penalty cases are never like this, more often than not the state overcharges the case and seek death on a case that doesn't really qualify to pressure a defendant, and guess what, sometimes that works and sometimes you get a trial.

To me, and again, it would take forever to figure this all out, the key to the delay is figuring out why the federal charges were filed so much later on. It seems fairly clear that it was, in part, because the county was not equipped to really deal with it financially and it may be that Douglas asked the feds to step in because of that, or, it may be because they figured out that even if he got the death penalty on the state charges there was little chance that he would be executed on state charges in Idaho. Whatever the reason, once the federal charges were filed, new attorneys were appointed on that case who were federal court death penalty qualitifed, and then they had to be able to go through about 40,000 documents I believe were in the case and countless hours of videotapes. Duncan, or his attorneys, had no control over when the federal government would file federal charges.

If you want to be upset about something, be upset about the prosecutor and judge in North Dakota who let him out on bail. Bail has to be set, but 15K? Who put up his bond?

Travis

What could be more clear cut than a video tape of the crime? A case that should have taken 15 minutes in court took years. It cost our state millions to prosecute a man whose guilt was 100% clear and certain from day number one.

Something is amiss. I do believe that our justice system could be streamlined to ensure better protection for the innocent and expedite the process for the guilty.

[Travis In Austin]

It cost our state millions to prosecute a man whose guilt was 100% clear and certain from day number one.

I don't think it cost your state anything close to that, that was the problem for your county. The commissioners were worried that it was going to cost the county $1,000,000 if it had to go to trial. It didn't have to go to trial. I believe the Douglas said the only expense he requested was for a new laptop, about $2,400 I recall, the county rejected his request for a plasma t.v. The county belongs to a joint fund that pays attorneys fees for death penalty cases, there was a 10,000 deductable for that, and the fund paid his defense counsel $400,000.

As far as the federal case, all of us federal taxpayers paid for that, but most are sunk costs. There really isn't too much additional expense other than the costs of experts for both sides.

That is the problem with these kinds of cases, it is hard to sort out the political banter from the facts. Your paper seems to have some very good reporting on this and discussed what the costs were. If you were getting your info from TV media they tend to lead with headlines like: Duncan trial likey to cost County millions. That then gets turned into talk around town that the county has spent millions.

Like I said, I don't have time to go through all of those articles, there are about 50, including court documents, audiotapes, etc. If you really want to figure out where the blame lies and what the breakdown, if any, was in this case I suggest you start by reading all of those articles, and reviewing the other information. As hard as it is to beleive, elected officials like county prosecutors, county commissioners, and state judges will try and spin things so as to not look responsible for anything that the voters may tend to blame them for like delay or expense. In the criminal justice system that leaves only defense counsel, the defendant, or the press to shift blame to. I was able to glean a lot from just 3 articles, but I kind of know what to look for having handled some of the most high profile cases in Austin. It is interesting to hear people's comments about cases that have received a lot of media attention, they really don't have any clue about what the facts are, but I woldn't expect them to unless they were in court everyday, like the jury, and the judge, and the lawyers. It's funny when they try to argue with you about what was said or done until they find out you were the lawyer on the case.

Travis

[oscarsear]

Our county pays $51K annually for the premium on that death penalty insurance. The cost of investigation was not covered and that hit over $200K. The county had to make modifications to our jail and court just for this man and sundry other fees came to over $150K. So, whether it is insurance paying the tab, the county, the state or the feds this one case probably did cost over $1 million.

Again, there is a video tape showing this man raping a little boy whom he later admitted he killed. They have the pieces of the boy he failed to destroy. Why did our system need to do anything other than a few minimal steps to get him through the courts and into prison?

No to be cheeky, but you seem numbed to the fact that tons and tons of dollars are calmly wasted as if it were (which it apparently is) a matter of routine. Our leadership is comprised mostly of attorneys and they see no reason to examine their own milieu to scour up some sorely needed savings. Is there any concern in any legal circles about the costs wasted in achieving justice? Are there any lawyer groups or professional organizations proposing ways to streamline the system? The system is sluggish, arcane, wasteful and it really is not working well. It was devised over 200 years ago and has evolved into a spaghetti pile of regulations, rules and laws enough to fill a law library, literally. All of that to protect the innocent against the gov't and to convict criminals. Does every court and legal meeting still require court reporters? Why? Isn't 10 different ways of documenting case dialogue enough? Can't we get by using video tape and/or digital recordings alone or in combination?

[jacksonbart]

Getting murdered sucks