How Not to Prosecute a Rapist, Part 1: Opening Statements

First, a little overview:

The Cook County, IL Circuit Court system selected me for jury duty. I visited the 26th & California (Chicago) criminal facility, submitted myself as required, and ended up performing real jury duty with real jurors, a real judge, a real defendant, very real victims, multiple witnesses, a decent but unremarkable defense attorney, and surprisingly incompetent prosecutors.


Second, a little qualifying statement:

Current mood: Angry
I spent four days sitting with eleven other jurors (and two alternates) listening to witnesses, prosecutors, and the defense attorney. But I'm not mad at the process, I'm mad at the lawyers... mostly the prosecutors. I'm a private citizen with no substantial legal experience. All I kept thinking was, "It can't be this bad all the time..." and "my friends would eat these two for breakfast if they were opposing council, and they're just a year out of law school".

I believe that's a bad sign.

The judge, the court reporters, the clerks, the officers were all top notch and on top of their game.

I had no previous knowledge of the case, the defendant, witnesses, or attorneys before sitting for this trial. After the end I did find out I knew of a couple of the offenses.

I'm writing because I'm angry, and because I want lawyers out there to know how to more effectively argue to a jury. For example: don't piss off the jury. I thought that would be a pretty standard concept learned in law school . I suppose not.

Most of the time I'm going to speak for myself, but occasionally I'll address what we as a jury felt. I'll make sure to note that. We as a jury were pretty much on the same page as far as frustration, so most of the time, speaking for myself is speaking to the attitude of all of us.


Third, a little background on the case:

I didn't know this at the time, but we were going to try the first out of seven cases against First, the judge was fantastic throughout the entire process Villa, aka: Jose Alpizar. He was known in the media as the "Lincoln Park Rapist" and the "North Side Rapist". From 1999 to 2004 he was busy looking for unlocked windows and casing vulnerable women on the street.


Onto the point,
Opening Statements:

While I've never served on a jury before (I'm 26), I had a certain expectation of how things were going to go. I'm not talking about from cop shows or lawyer shows, I mean from a "You're going to be here for a while, here's what we're going to prove" point of view. That's not what happened. I consolidate the prosecution's opening argument's to this:

We are going to present some evidence and it's going to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Mario Villa is guilty as charged of home invasion and of aggravated criminal sexual assault.

Ok, that's good... so, can you give us a little outline of how you're going to do that?

Mmm... no, that's ok, you figure it out.

... really?

Great... Defense opening statement?

You're going to hear a woman testify about a terrible event, and we understand it's going to be uncomfortable and it's not going to be pretty. But the judge instructed you to follow the law, and we'd like you to focus on that. You all took an oath to be impartial, so when examining the facts and evidence of the case we want you to truly be impartial, follow the law, and make a fair decision based on the evidence in front of you. Be impartial and follow the law. FOLLOW THE LAW

Follow the law, yes, we will try to do that.



So, what did we learn? Prosecution?

• When giving an opening statement, please don't just tell us "We have a case that will blow you away", give us a brief outline of your case.
• Tell us ahead of time that your chain of evidence is rock solid, your expert witnesses unimpeachable, and your victims sure. Don't force us to try and figure that all out later (though we will if we have to).

Defense?

• The Judge starts by telling us that he's going to instruct us as to the law. During jury selection, both you and the judge asked if we could be fair and impartial. If you want to reiterate the point, please do so once.
• If you're going to reiterate the point, don't sound so desperate. It makes it sound like your case has one broken leg to stand on.
• If you sound desperate, you make it known you're going to try and use the word of the law to the benefit of the defendant (what we call a "technicality" in lay terms).
• If you're going to build your case on little "technicalities", we're happy to evaluate your case based on that. Please tell us what those might be ahead of time, or at least elude to parts of testimony you want us to focus on. Again, we will do our job by figuring it out, but it'll make it less likely we'll see everything how you want us to see it.

That's it for opening statements. Coming next?

How to Prosecute a Rapist, Part 2: How not to interview rape victims.

Here's some background on the case if you're interested.
NBC 5 news report from March 22, 2004: when they caught the guy.
Chicago Sun-Times reporting on the beginning of the trial.

By the way, the charges were, "Home Invasion", "Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault", "Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault", and "Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault" for three separate acts involved in the same event.