  I spent most of today at a mock trial for the Cleveland Bar Association. I was selected as one of the jurors for the trial (there were 4 of us); I had testified as one of the mock witnesses earlier in the week (even if I WAS nearly 45 minutes late :P), so it was kind of fun to be able to sit in on the whole trial and hear the entire case from another perspective.
The gyst of the case was that a judge had been found dead in his home while being investigated for a large amount of missing funds from his fines and fees collections. He had recently taken out a life insurance policy ($500,000), so the question we were looking at during the trial was whether his death was an accident (in which his widow would recover the whole amount) or a suicide (in which she would get only the amount he had paid for the insurance). I know this isn't what you're supposed to do, but from what I had testified about earlier in the week I thought that the guy had definitely committed suicide.
Of course, I was testifying as the person who was looking into the missing amounts of money from his fines and collections, so my perspective was pretty skewed. But as we heard the whole case (the trial took about 4 hours, with two witnesses each for the plaintiff and the defense), it became pretty clear that he hadn't killed himself after all. The primary thing which led us to this conclusion (we all said it was an accident) was the testimony of the coroner and a demonstration that the plaintiff put on which proved that it would have been virtually impossible for the judge to hold the gun and shoot himself and leave the blood marks left behind.
Anyway, enough of the technical details :P The whole thing was really great for me; the defense and the plaintiffs both did a really good job in presenting their cases, and the judge presiding over the trial was an actual federal court judge (it was actually even held in his courtroom in the Federal Building, which I have to admit is one of the coolest modern building I've ever seen and REALLY nice on the inside).
And I have to admit that I have never seen a trial before (I wasn't able to make one in DC), so it was a really good way for me to see the way they work and then hear critiques from the judge and other lawyers about the way the case was presented (and also really good for me to look at things through the eyes of a juror). I busted it back from that so I could make my softball games that night. I don't know what it's been lately, but it seems that virtually any night we've had v-ball or softball it's been relatively chilly.
We lost the first game to the other HCC team (but it was close all the way through), then we actually beat the best team in the league. Of course, it's pretty funny that we won 4-3 (in a softball game! ), but it was actually a really well-played game where we both played great defense (I even made a really nice catch in the OUTFIELD!). After softball I got back and arranged to catch a movie with Ben, Amanda, and Eric. We saw The Chronicles of Riddick, and I have to admit I didn't think it was that great of a movie.
First, I thought that they relied too much on the assumption that the viewer had already seen Pitch Black (which I had), and secondly, I'm just not really down with the whole neo-Roman futuristic look. I mean, come on, in the future I don't think most fights are going to be with knives! Anyway, it's been a pretty busy day and I'm gonna get some sleep. Hopefully tomorrow will be ok... 
