The concert and the forgery case

So Fred was called for jury duty on Wednesday aka Big Concert at the Sheldon Day. I’ll let him cover the details, but:

• he was called for a case
• he survived voir dire
• he sat through a brief forgery trial
• they voted “not guilty”, as the defendant was naïve and trusting and the prosecution had apparently mistaken this naïveté for malice.

So hi, it’s me (Fred). To summarize, the girl had a serious lack (and possibly still has) of common sense. So, being in a desperate situation at the time of the crime, with 2 kids, and having started a career to improve the situation since then, we let her off the hook and found her not guilty. The focus of our verdict was whether or not the prosecution could prove beyond reasonable doubt that she was guilty, as their evidence was pretty circumstantial. Had the prosecution been able to secure some video footage that was discussed during a testimony, or, managed to get the guy who was the mastermind behind this fiasco, we may have gone the guilty route. I just hope she realizes she got VERY lucky, and if she pulls this again, I doubt she’ll find a jury as generous as we were. It took somse soul searching for 2 of our jurors to change their guilty to not guilty. A few of the jury didn’t want to see her as a person, who didn’t deserve jail time, and had suffered enough let alone the impact on her kids. They were gritting their teeth and pointing the finger at a cold, calculating criminal who should rot in jail with fines in the thousands of dollars. The deliberations were almost more interesting than the case itself. For more details on the case, just ask and I’ll fill you in. Back to Jim…

The concert itself was… well, I’d rather have seen a larger audience, and I’d rather we not have missed a cue to start. The crowd we had, though, was eager, responsive, and forgiving; and the room itself is a glorious space for music, catching all sorts of nuances without need for amplification. Personally, I’m most pleased with our two opening numbers because I FINALLY got my phrasing right on them.

Hopefully, we can receive recordings of the show. (The Sheldon records all performances for their archives, but only sometimes shares the recordings.) If possible, I may post a clip or two.

(And Toddy: chorus guys are good at softball due to secret lesbionic techniques which I am not authorized to disclose.)