Spending this week as a juror has been educational in ways I never could have imagined – some good, some bad. Now that it’s concluded, though, I’m finally allowed to divulge specifics, and given that I started blogging as a place to “talk”, I’m enormously relieved. (More “talk” about the case here.)
Courtrooms, and the entire judicial system, are littered with broken dreams. Defendants and victims alike are in the midst of life-altering judgments and decisions, and all by itself, that would have been enough to capture Polimom’s full attention.
However, there was another aspect to all of this that was hugely relevant to much of what I’ve written in recent weeks; this defendant was an illegal immigrant.
We were not “officially” aware of his status until the sentencing, but it was fairly obvious, and it added a dimension to the entire proceeding that I hadn’t anticipated. Furthermore, listening to his testimony (through an interpreter) gave me insight into a number of things. For instance:
— This man had never been to school. Ever. Anywhere. He didn’t know the street number of the house he lived in, and he could barely sign his name.
— Seven days a week (unless it rained), he stood out on a corner to be picked up (hopefully) for work, and he’d had a prior arrest – for stealing food from an HEB.
What an abysmally sad life this man has led here in America in his quest for “something better”, and in spite of our careful community cross-section on the jury, I can assure you that not one of us could possibly be defined as his “peer”. Not by a mile.
The streets here are not paved with gold; it is a hard life for an uneducated, illiterate illegal immigrant, and Polimom wishes with all her heart that he had simply stayed at home in his little village in Mexico. Instead, he’ll spend the next five years in a Texas prison – hardly the American dream.
Surely, no matter how hard a life he had in Mexico, it was better than what he faces now.