Defending People

the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering

III">Trial in Court 14: Voir Dire III

The Anony­mous Pros­e­cu­tor did a really nice job in jury selec­tion. Next up: D.

You’re prob­a­bly all won­der­ing what you got your­self into today. There’s a ten­sion in this court­room; I’m going to try my best to explain to you what’s going on. There’s more to it than just a class B tres­pass case.

I appre­ci­ate AP, the court­room, the judge, liv­ing in a coun­try where we have rights and process.

I didn’t come here to address the issues.

The sub­ject here is a class B mis­de­meanor trespass.

AP is new here, and I had agreed to have case before the judge (objec­tion over­ruled). I was com­fort­able with the court sys­tem. The court called me a week later … (objec­tion sus­tained). (State refused to waive jury? WTF, AP?)

I’m thank­ful for each one of you.

My mes­sage is that each one of you, we are all loved. We are impor­tant to our cre­ator. He is deal­ing with all of us in a won­der­ful unique way.

I have 9 years in navy civil engi­neer corps and 12 years in reserves. I don’t hold the judge’s army ser­vice against him.

I had a room­mate who used to tell peo­ple who came to door with reli­gious mate­ri­als that he was a Fris­bitar­ian. He believed that our souls are like fris­bees, thrown up onto the roof when we die till they are bleached by the sun and go to heaven.

Any­one object to him exer­cis­ing his reli­gion in his home?

I’ve been here since 2001. I’m a civil engi­neer, work for a marine con­struc­tion com­pany. Con­tracts man­ager. I’m also an evan­ge­list, I love telling peo­ple about my faith if they’re inter­ested; a lot of peo­ple aren’t. I wasn’t till I was 38. When I was 38 I lost every­thing in my life. Fam­ily, home (tear­ing up). In the process I hurt a lot of peo­ple. I was pretty full of myself. At that point some­thing hap­pened in my life that caused me to say to my cre­ator, “take this mess that I have made.” August 17, 1992.

Remar­ried, won­der­ful Chris­t­ian life, three sons—Matthew, Mark, Daniel Luke. My sons from my first mar­riage are in DC and at UT med school.

It’s been said here that this isn’t about abor­tion. This is a class B mis­de­meanor crim­i­nal tres­pass case.

You’ll see in a lit­tle while what is going on in our city.

I’ve been blow­ing the sho­far now for five years. (Objection—sustained as to going into facts of the case.)

The point is that with all the pos­i­tive things going on in our city … I believe that the cre­ator loves Hous­ton very very much. The scene of the crime is not an abor­tion clinic. (Objec­tion sus­tained just as it was get­ting inter­est­ing.) Standby coun­sel whis­pers in D’s ear.

I promised you an expla­na­tion of the Tal­lit. I’m a born-again evan­gel­i­cal Jew­ish guy. There is an obnox­ious group of folks out there, church­go­ers. This is a Tal­lit. The Old Tes­ta­ment tells us to wear God’s word from the four cor­ners of our gar­ments. This rep­re­sents the word of God, I’m get­ting under it. It is a Judeo-Christian custom.

I don’t care what side of the issue you’re on. I just want to tell you that you’re all loved. We’re going to pick out six of you, the rest of you don’t feel bad that you’re not picked.

My best to the dis­trict attor­ney, I thank the court and you for being here this morning.

(Damn. I want to applaud.)

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This entry was posted by on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 at 11:55 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About The Author

Mark Bennett got his letter of marque from the Supreme Court of Texas in May 1995. He is famous for having no sense of humor when it comes to totalitarianism.

Comments

9 Responses to “Trial in Court 14: Voir Dire III”

  1. Michael says:
    29 April 2010 at 1:33 pm

    Sho­far, shogood.

    Reply
  2. Lee Stonum says:
    30 April 2010 at 10:24 am

    Enjoyed the cov­er­age. Is this pro per psychodrama?

    Reply
  3. Alejandro Macias says:
    30 April 2010 at 1:42 pm

    I saw the sho­far under the secu­rity table by the ele­va­tor yes­ter­day. I guess they wouldn’t let him in with it. What hap­pened at the trial?

    Reply
    • Mark Bennett says:
      30 April 2010 at 4:01 pm

      Con­victed. 30d pro­bated for six months with no con­di­tions except to stay at least 15 feet away from the entrance of any Planned Par­ent­hood, but judge will ter­mi­nate the pro­ba­tion after two months.

      Reply
  4. Larissa Lindsay says:
    30 April 2010 at 4:56 pm

    And Judge Fields serves as Mr. Allen’s pro­ba­tion offi­cer. The judge said 15 feet from the door, not prop­erty line. Pre­sum­ably, the gates are a door, but it could be a tech­ni­cal bat­tle in court in the future.

    Reply
    • Mark Bennett says:
      30 April 2010 at 6:35 pm

      Thanks, Larissa.

      I don’t agree with Mr. Allen philo­soph­i­cally, but I was touched by his story and I believed him when he said that this was a one-shot deal. I don’t think we’ll be see­ing any tech­ni­cal bat­tles in court on this one.

      Reply
  5. Sunshine says:
    4 May 2010 at 2:33 pm

    Was D han­dled with kid gloves all things con­sid­ered? It seems to me that oth­ers sim­i­larly sit­u­ated haven’t been quite as lucky. Then again, maybe he had a bet­ter lawyer…

    Reply
  6. Brian Gurwitz says:
    6 May 2010 at 9:23 am

    He’s been blow­ing his chauf­feur for eight years? Did he thank the USSC for Lawrence v. Texas, which made it pos­si­ble (or at least lawful)?

    Reply

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