A Trial Nobody Cares About

Part of this site's purpose is to provide a glimpse into the world of the prosecutor. I want to give you a view into who we are and what we really do. There are television shows, books, and movies where famous actors portray the prosecutors and defense attorneys as they battle in some high profile case.

That's not me. I'm one of thousands of anonymous women and men. I'm in the trenches fighting over territory long abandoned by most of society. I'm what you'd call an upper middle class prosecutor. The cases I'm assigned are very serious, very complex, but not usually the ones that end up in the news. The cases that receive daily coverage are reserved for a few select prosecutors. The only ones that end up caring about the results of my cases are the defendant and the attorneys, and sometimes the victims.

That's part of the reason you have not heard from me in so long. I just finished a trial where a defendant tried to execute three people on a city street. His target was one man who he had a feud with and two other people who happened to be witnesses. There is a pending co-defendant whose trial is a few weeks away so I am barred from saying much more than that right now.

The amazing part to me is that the media ignored this horrific and brutal violence. The local news reported on fist fights at wealthy locations, graffiti at high schools, and other low level crimes during this trial. A reporter never set foot in the courtroom to catch a glimpse of what life is truly like on some of the streets in a major urban center. No one ever asked a question of what motivated a man to commit such heinous crimes.

It's not that I want my cases in the news. Heightened media attention brings with it a heightened scrutiny both from within the office and outside of it. I do my best work in anonymity and far away from the spotlight that shines when a case is on the front page. It just struck me as a reflection on the world we live in where this horrific act, which would have been a mass homicide if successful, barely registers as news because of where it occurred and maybe who the targets were. One of the frustrations with this blog is that I cannot shine the light on cases or issues that should get attention. It's part of the rules I created this by though. I cannot discuss pending cases.

Plenty of drama occurred in this trial, including witness intimidation, the defendant discussing how good our opening statement was in his jail calls, and how we waited for the defendant to open the door to allow us to use his confession as evidence. But it all has to wait. The verdict was guilty, which is another story for a different post.

I apologize for the delay between posts, but maybe I should take more breaks. My daily and monthly views are more than double than when I was posting a few times a week. Supply and demand? Absence makes the heart grow fonder? There's probably no correlation, but I do hope a few new readers and old ones enjoy when the curtain is pulled back a bit in the criminal world.