Baump baump bam boom baum buh baum

The title of this post, ladies and gentlemen, is the theme song for Boston Legal in case you didn't catch that. Boston Legal and Ally McBeal are my two favorite lawyer-based shows, both written by David E. Kelley. This is relevant because I just got off serving as a juror for a four-day trial. I must admit that I was relatively disappointed that neither of the attorneys resembled Denny Crane or Alan Shore. That would've made it totally worth while! (Who doesn't think James Spader is hot?!)


My case involved a person pulled over for DUI. He was single, 35, and fairly well off. He was driving home from a club at 2:00am when he was clocked going 99 MPH by the CHP on the 55 freeway. Upon being pulled over, he told the officer he had only one beer four hours earlier. The officer asked him to complete the six field sobriety tests, which he failed. He also refused to take a breathalyzer test at the scene. The cop arrested him and booked him at the Orange County Jail. Once there, they tested his blood, where his BAC came back at 0.104 and 0.106. The legal limit is 0.08.

During the course of the trial, we learned from the defense that the defendant also had a schooner of beer and a double-shot of Patron tequila about 13 minutes prior to being pulled over. This became a key element of the trial since counsel was providing this information in support of what is called a "rising defense". What this means is that rather than assuming a person's blood alcohol concentration is going down (burnoff) from the time the person is pulled over to the time they are tested at jail (in this case an hour later), the fact that the person consumed a large volume of alcohol right before driving would point to a case where the person is sober while driving, but intoxicated an hour later at the police station once they have absorbed the alcohol. While I suppose this could be plausible, the schooner of beer plus the tequila would only add up to a blood alcohol level of 0.076 using the information provided to us by the expert witnesses. Therefore, this would mean that the defendant had more drinks that he was not admitting to and this cast doubt on his defense. In the end, we did find him guilty.

Being a part of the justice system is interesting and does instill a certain sense of pride in our country. It's easy to forget that not everyone in the world has the right to a trial and is assumed to be innocent. The judge read us rules before going into deliberations and he stressed that if you have two conclusions and one points to the defendant's innocence and the other points to the defendant's guilt, you are required to find the defendant innocent. I would imagine in many places in other countries, this same person would be found guilty.

In the meantime, I'm going to avoid getting caught up further in the wheels of justice!