I was told that I should go to Las Vegas soon.
Why?
On Monday, I was #65 in a 65-member jury panel for a criminal case in Harris County's district courts.
And I got picked as an alternate to a five-male, seven-female jury.
During voir dire, I was just amazed, when asked by counsel if they could follow the law regarding range of punishment and other issues, the number of people who said that they couldn't.
I just think it is a sign of the times that we live in.
Americans expect to be free from lawlessness, but they aren't willing to hold others accountable.
It isn't about judging others.
We have laws in our land and we've expected to abide by them or suffer the consequences.
Thankfully, there were still 12 - OK, 13 of us - who were willing and prepared to make the proper considerations based on what was presented.
Actually, as an alternate, I was not in on the deliberations this afternoon to either decide guilt or innocence as well as punishment (as guilt was found), but I can report that a dangerous man was taken off of the streets of Harris County today.
He will be spending 35 years in prison as the result of being convicted today on aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon - his third felony (all robberies).
The range available, because of the enhancement of having two previous felonies, was 25 to 99 years.
Really the whole episode was sad.
The man robbed a cab driver of his wallet and cell phone from the center console of the cab and refused to pay a $21 cab fare.
When an altercation ensued between the cab driver and one of two other passengers - one being the defendant's brother - the defendant held a gun to the cab driver's head as he was being held by the brother, then all three took off and ran.
During the punishment phase we learned that the defendant had 13 convictions in total, including robbery, theft, possession of a controlled substance and criminal trespass.
Five or six of these were in 1998 and 1999 when he was still a juvenile.
Additionally, an expert on gangs in Harris County was brought in to testify that the defendant was a member of a gang - based on their tattoos - one of 250 different gangs of all levels that operate in and around Harris County.
Thankfully, nobody was killed in this situation and hopefully by putting the convicted felon behind bars for a long time - hopefully - it will keep something from happening on our local streets.
