Presiding over a trial or serving as a juror is no easy task.
For judges, doing it is a job, but for a lot of them it's also a calling, a desire to merge their professional expertise and interests with service to their neighbors via the criminal justice system.
What’s the point?
Courtroom decisions — one by a jury in Benton County and one by a judge in Washington County — left observers scratching their heads.
In the case of jurors, fulfillment of theirduty can be seen as an obligation or as an opportunity to serve the greater community. Without jurors, our judicial system would function, but in a lesser version than one powered by the right to a trial before one's peers.
Most of the time, cases come and cases go as the administration of justice marches on, and the busy public takes little notice of the daily grind of the courts. That's why courtrooms have gotten smaller over the years. Back in the day, before radio, television or the Internet, a good trial was the talk of the town and courtrooms were massive, some with balconies for extra observers. Neighbors packed the house sometimes to hear the cases laid out, watch the lawyers argue the sides and await a verdict. They were the original reality shows, complete with cliffhanger (deliberation) and a dramatic ending.
Today, "Law and Order" gets the crime, investigation and trial all wrapped up in about 42 minutes, once commercials are taken into account. Who has time to watch a real trial?
Judges do. Juries do. And we respect what they do.
But ...
Two recent cases in Northwest Arkansas prompted this question among members of our editorial board: "What were they thinking?" We suspect we aren't alone in asking it.
Jorge Alcon, a 73-year-old former program assistant for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, was trusted to care for some of the most vulnerable children in the state. For 15 years, Alcon worked for the state agency responsible for children whose relatives, at least temporarily, have shown themselves unable to provide an adequate level of care. The kind of care children deserve.
Last Friday morning, a jury had already found him guilty of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl in a restroom while taking the foster child to visit relatives. He arrived in court expecting what a predator of defenseless children deserves, punishment. What the jury determined to be justice was a $15,000 fine.
And that's it.
No jail time. Judge Brad Karren accepted the recommendation. He also ordered Alcon to register as a sex offender and not to have any unsupervised contact with children.
Maybe Karren wagged his finger at Alcon as he imposed the sentence.
Jurors heard testimony that Alcon was a good person, that such a criminal charge was out of character for the man. Does anyone believe that's what the 4-year-old girl was thinking when she faced sexual manipulation by a man she'd been instructed to trust?
The jury took 11 hours to convict Alcon, raising the prospect that they might find him not guilty. That would, perhaps, have been more comforting because it would have required them to find the evidence of the crime unconvincing. But, based on their verdict, they had no reasonable doubt about what Alcon did.
So how does a jury convince themselves a man sexually assaulted a young girl then set him free? How do they reach that conclusion after hearing Alcon, in police interviews, describing his 4-year-old victim as the sexual aggressor?
Prosecutors suggested maybe, just maybe, the girl, rather than Alcon, deserved mercy. Clearly the jury had other ideas.
Also in the what-were-they-thinking category comes the case of Sergio Rodriguez, 34, who recently pleaded guilty in Washington County Circuit Court to manslaughter, second-degree battery and leaving the scene of an accident. Judge Mark Lindsay added the sentences together to give Rodriguez a total of 17 years in prison.
The crime was brutal, unforgiving and fatal to a teenager who was riding on a scooter when Rodriguez plowed his truck into the back of the two-wheeled cycle. Hailey King, 18, was thrownonto the hood, where she stayed for what must have seemed like, and ultimately was, a lifetime. Osmin David Gutierrez, 20, was driving the scooter and was run over. He sat in the courtroom in his wheelchair, absent two legs and with emotional challenges anyone would face after such a horrific event.
Rodriguez pleaded guilty, so what could be an issue? After sentencing Rodriguez to 17 years in prison, the judge allowed the convicted killer to remain free on $25,000 bond until April 25 or until a bed opened up at the Arkansas Department of Correction.
Who wouldn't understand the reaction of the victims' families? They were outraged his bail wasn't revoked and he was not sent to jail right then and there. They had every right to be.
Maybe Lindsay felt Rodriguez is no threat to the community. Maybe the never-ending pressure from the bean counters to keep the population of the county jail -- where people awaiting transfer to the state prison system stay -- low influenced the judge's decision. Maybe that $25,000 bond will compel Rodriguez to show up at the appointed time to report to prison.
We weren't in the Benton County jury room and we don't know what factors the Washington County judge needed to factor into his decision, but it is challenging to conceive of a justice system that embraces these outcomes as fair and just.
A 4-year-old girl, an 18-year-old woman who is no longer around for her young child and a 20-year-man who testified he's "incarcerated in my own body for life" deserved a little better, didn't they?
Commentary on 04/20/2018