AKA Weapons of Moderate Destruction or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy the Trial

part 2 of my 3-part jury duty series.  Part 1 here.

“I have a restraining order against her.  She tried to burn my house down once, and she’s run at me with a battleax.” -Diane N. (mother of defendant) describing her relationship with Ronneisha W. (defendant’s girlfriend and mother of defendant’s child).

This was a weird case and a weird trial with some definitively weird characters.

The People vs. James N: Two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of of assault with a deadly weapon on a cohabitant/domestic partner (felony).

According to the police report and subsequent police testimony:

On May 2 2008 at 11:40 AM, the defendant James N. (at the time living with his mother, his girlfriend, and their 8 month old son) accused Ronneisha W. (girlfriend) and Diane N. (mother) of talking about him behind their back.

“Fuck you both, bitches,” he reportedly stated before picking up a thick 3-foot stick (what Diane N. later referred to as her “fighting stick”).  He then proceeded to beat Ronneisha until his mother attempted to restrain him.  In doing so, the stick broke over Diane’s hand into 3 pieces (photographic evidence from this incident showed a massive welt on Diane’s hand as well as multiple bruises along Ronneisha’s body and hands).

(fighting stick??)

When the stick broke, Ronneisha ran into the apartment’s bedroom while James walked into the kitchen and armed himself with a steak knife.  He followed Ronneisha into the bedroom and began to attack her with the knife (photographic evidence from this incident showed a three-inch horizontal gash across Ronneisha’s ankle with a smear of blood trickling down).  Diane entered the bedroom and attempted to stop the attack, and in doing so sustained a small puncture wound (photogaphic evidence showed a small eraserhead-sized injury on Diane’s left forearm).

James then stopped, asked for a cigarette, and left the apartment.

Police arrived (none of the three participants called) and found Diane and Ronneisha upset and somewhat injured.  Both declined medical treatment.  Ronneisha’s sister picked her and the child up (they were never found or heard from again, including in this trial).  Diane gave officers the above version of the events.

This version of the events was supported by two officer’s testimonies: the responding officer on May 2 and the investigative detective who followed up with an interview of Diane three days later.  Ronneisha could not be found.

The testimony of Diane

First, I think we need to describe Diane.  I want to do this as honestly and as fairly as possible.

Diane is not the kind of person I interact with frequently: she owns both a fighting stick - guess she needs a new one though - and a battleax.  In other words, Diane is awesome.  She is bipolar, takes a lot of medication, worries about her memory, walks with a cane, and may i remind you owns a battleax.

I tried to find a picture of someone resembling Diane.  I wasn’t sure where I could (flickr search proved anemic for this kind of thing).  Mugshots.com however was pretty great!  Disclosure: this is NOT the witness.

(NOT Diane - but pretty close)

Before even getting on the stand, Diane announced “I’m not testifying against my son.”  You see, Diane was subpoenaed to appear in court, and she wasn’t very happy to be there.

Diane’s version of the story was both significantly hazier and somewhat different from the above version of May 2’s incident.

According to Diane, she wasn’t even there when the incident started.  She was waiting for the postman when she heard raised voices.  She went inside and saw them arguing.  Diane was standing on one side of the curtain separating the living room from the hallway and James/Ronneisha were on the other side.  She was then struck with a stick through the curtain, but the stick didn’t break over her hand - it broke on the wall.  Or maybe Diane was on the other side of the curtain.  Or maybe there wasn’t a curtain.  Even the defense was somewhat confused by the curtain/stick thing.  Then things got hazy.

“And then what happened, Ms. N?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you tell Offficer Mohammad that James then armed himself with a steak knife?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you tell Officer Mohammad that James then went into the bedroom and attacked Ronneisha?”

“Um, I really don’t remember.”

“Did you tell the police that you then tried to stop the attack and you were stabbed?”

“No.  I did not say that.”

“Ms. N [showing the photo of Diane’s puncture wound], is this your arm?”

“I think it is, yes.”

“How did you sustain this injury taken during at your house on May 2?”

“I don’t know.  Is that my right?  Left?  Hmm, I have no idea how I got that.”

The rest of the testimony was a lot of “I don’t remembers,” “I’m concerned about my memory,” “I take a lot of medication - I may have said that but I don’t know.”

Oh yeah, and also the bit about the battleax.

There was no other testimony.  Neither Ronneisha nor James took the stand.

Other relevant pieces of information:

No knife was ever found, photographed, or printed.  The police did not collect any evidence.   James is bipolar and was not taking his medication.

Next post: The Jury and The Verdict.