They, the jury: It's a crime, but not a hate crime

I've done my duty to my fellow citizens: Yesterday, I was released from jury duty after a week-long trial. As an alternate, I sat through the trial but wasn't in the deliberations. Frustrating. But I think the jury did a very reasonable job deciding the case.

The story was reported here, I discovered today. There's a video showing the whole thing. A mother and her two sons, 15 and 12, were standing outside a bakery waiting to buy donuts, their Friday morning ritual, when a strange man ran up and hit the 15-year-old in the face, causing his head to snap back and hit his mother's eye. The man ran off shouting, twice, "Stop looking at me, faggot."

Two days later, the father, who'd seen the defendant arrested, saw him again not far from the bakery and the family home arguing with someone. The father got out of his car and began making a video warning the neighborhood about a dangerous man on the loose. That video shows the defendant spitting on the father, who called 911 to report a third battery.

The defense didn't contest the attack on the son and the mother, and the jury convicted on both counts. The jury couldn't reach a decision on the spitting: I assume some jurors thought the spit might not have landed -- it takes one drop -- and that the very angry father who said it did might have been biased by his desire to get the guy off the streets.

They acquitted on the "hate crime" charge, which was absolutely the right decision. The defendant testified that he thought the boy was staring at him because he'd been riding a pink bike. He felt "disrespected" and struck back, using the slur without thinking about it. He'd never seen the boy before, did not know his sexual orientation and didn't think he was gay.

The boy is not gay, he testified. Nothing in his appearance would have led someone to perceive he was gay. He seemed like a nice kid, badly shaken by the assault. He'd felt that he couldn't defend himself against an adult, couldn't defend his mother and little brother.

Oddly enough -- this was our big reveal -- the defendant is gay. Or, maybe not. Asked to define the word he actually defined bisexual. But he's been "in a relationship" with another man for "more than five years, 10 years, more than 10 years," he testified. (He did this once on Friday and again on Monday when the trial resumed.) He described his partner as male on Friday, and used "she" on Monday. It could have been a tactic, but I think it was more likely the fact that this guy is, to use the legal term, several sandwiches short of a picnic. And no potato salad.

So the defense argued that he used "faggot" -- referred to as the "f-word" to avoid offending us jurors -- as a generic insult rather than a sign of gay-bashing. I was persuaded.

If anything, I thought, it was a self-hate crime: He was embarrassed to be seen on that pink bike.

We learned that the defendant had been convicted in the past of various crimes, including assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence. (This was supposed to go to his credibility.) I inferred that he was homeless, living in an abandoned store in the area. And that he'd burned his brains out with drugs.

Other observations: Potential jurors had to answer set questions, including their race or ethnicity, occupation, whether they'd been a victim of a crime (almost everyone) or accused of a crime. There was a question about donations and volunteering, which I think was to identify "defund the police," "back the blue" or pro- or anti-LGBTQ advocates. For all the focus on attitudes towards the police, the police testimony was technical.

I think everyone called was trying to answer questions truthfully. Only a few said their experiences might make it hard to be fair. Everyone wants to think they can be fair. It really is an honor to serve on a jury, to be trusted to judge another person. I don't think anyone took it lightly.

Asked if they'd been a victim of a crime, a man said he'd sexually and physically abused as a child, a woman broke out sobbing and another women was unable to speak. They were excused. So was a woman whose son had been held up at gunpoint and another whose daughter had been attacked recently. Several people involved in victim advocacy were excused, as was a man whose uncle was a prosecutor.

The final jury, including the two alternates, was majority Asian (Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Korean and Japanese) with two Hispanics, a black guy, a white guy (who might have been part Hispanic) and two white women. The county is plurality Asian, but that was a surprise. Quite a few jurors apparently were immigrants, judging by their accents.

The defendant and the victims were Hispanic.

It being Silicon Valley, many of the jurors worked in engineering or other technical fields. At one point, the prosecutor had a problem getting her laptop to show one of the videos, and I thought: Half the jurors could fix that!

I don't think the defendant will be off the streets for very long. I wonder if the 15-year-old boy and his family will feel safe going to the neighborhood bakery for donuts on Friday morning, if they'll give that up.