Running head: PEOPLE V.

ABEL GONZALEZ

People v. Abel Gonzalez JAMIE DOGGETT DeVry University Victimology JADM 330 Kelly Menke October 5, 2013

PEOPLE V. ABEL GONZALEZ People v. Abel Gonzalez Key Players Judge: Michael Wellington Defense Attorney: Mr. Lara District Attorney: Mr. Manahan Defendant: Abel Gonzalez Reactions and the Venire Selection Process Being apart of a jury is a wonderful way to see how the courts really work and to see first hand how a trial goes. It is a wonderful experience for anyone going to school for Victim: Sela Cervantes Responding Officer: Jeff Smith Photographer: John English

criminal justice, anyone wanting to be apart of the courtroom, or just anyone who is interested in our judicial system and how it works. I am so proud to say that I had the chance to sit in on a trial and had the opportunity to see how this part of the judicial system works. Having experience as a law enforcement officer to some degree already and to see this next step in the process was very intriguing to me. Not to mention this case hits home, since I have been a victim of domestic violence most of my life. Very interesting to see how I reacted to all the evidence and testimonies from people. I did better than I honestly thought I would and as well as I hoped I would. My jury duty requirement started on September 16, 2013 with a phone in method to see if we had to show up. Another option there was to see if you had to show up was to go on to the website to see as well. That is the main one I used because it was easier. Just input your name and your badge number which is on your summons for jury duty, and that would tell you if you had to show up. Monday and Tuesday, I did not have anything but my prayers were answered come Wednesday. Since I knew the lines would be long, showing up to the courthouse at 0645

PEOPLE V. ABEL GONZALEZ was a good idea although the doors did not open until 0730. Once in the jury room they go through the introduction of the importance of being on a jury and all the paper work that is needed so those who have a job can still be paid. They also provide free Wi-Fi, which is nice. On the first pick of people to go upstairs to a department, I was chosen. Therefore, forty-nine others and I go up to the second floor to department 9. Fifteen of us were sitting in, or right in front of the jury box and the others were sitting in the rear of the courtroom. We all were

assigned a seat number that we had to remember. I was number nine. Easy to remember since it was also the department number we were in. The courtroom was round with the Judge in the back center of the room. Just to his right was the court clerk. Just in front of the Judge was the court recorder. To the left of all this was the jury box with fourteen seats and three in front of said box. To the left of the Judge was the witness stand. Straight in front of the court recorder was the Prosecution. To their right was the Defense. Behind the attorneys, a railing separated the guest from those that had to be there. Behind them were the others awaiting to be on the jury or to not be selected. It was a small courtroom with dark wood for the tables, railings, and all things wood in the room. It was almost intimidating to be in there and made the room dark and almost gloomy. Now as the jury selection goes, there are 6 questions asked by the judge to start with like name, city of residence, job, spouse or significant other, their job, and any reason we could not be fair and impartial to the case. The added seventh one was if we had been involved in domestic violence before, or knew of someone who has. I was honest about my job/s saying that I was in the Navy Reserves and a student. They asked me what I was a student of and where so I told them criminal justice at DeVry and that I was a Master-at-Arms in the reserves. At this point I thought I was going to be dismissed but they kept me.

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The defense attorney, Mr. Lara, asked some crazy questions like do we drink socially and if so what we drink. He specifically inquired about Vodka. That was not so bad but when he got to his line of questioning that went to a hypothetical law just after the Emancipation Proclamation period, which was a bit strange I thought. Then he asked hypothetical questions about his hypothetical scenario. Very odd! The interesting part to me was that the defendant, Abel Gonzalez, was there through this part. The DA; or prosecution, Mr. Manahan, asked typical questions such as a more clarification on the judges question about domestic violence with: have we been a victim. He pinpointed right on me, since I was the only actual victim. He asked all of us if we knew what recanting was and he explained it. Then he came to me and asked me what happened with my domestic violence (dv) case and if I stayed. I answered honestly that he was harassing and disloyal to me and that I did stay but got a restraining order against him. He then asked me why I thought people recant. I mentioned that there are a million reasons why such as fear and that was the main factor in most of the reasons; such as fear of repercussions, fear of being alone, with no support etc. It was nice to know that he used me as a way of teaching the jury of recanting. That was awesome. There were several cuts and only 3 people left out of the initial 15 of us that were there. We were done by the end of Wednesday with the selection. The judge said that was a fast selection period. We were sent home for the day since it took most of the day and there was no sense in starting the trial at that point.

PEOPLE V. ABEL GONZALEZ The Trial Thursday comes along and when all the jurors were there, we entered the courtroom and began this trial. The first thing that happened was the opening statement. Mr. Manahan starts and tells his story of a volatile night full of beatings and fear where Cervantes was completely victimized by being slapped in the face several times, held against her will, and cut her on her left forearm with a razor blade. Mr. Lara went up and told his side of the story as Cervantes

being overly drunk was held against her will by Gonzalez so she would not hurt herself or others in the community, the slapping was for the reason of knocking some sense into her. The first witness goes up on the stand and states her name as Sela Cervantes (victim). This was a long testimony so I will just give the highlights instead of detail. She is a smaller woman being 5 ft 1 weighing 165 pounds. During her testimony, she forgot a lot of stuff that happened on the night in question, January 25, 2013 into January 26, 2013. As she remembers the night, they went to a sushi restaurant where she had 2.5 sakes. Went to a liquor store from there to buy some Absolute Vodka and went home. She claims she drank the 2.5 sakes, 3 40 oz. beers, and the entire large bottle of Absolute during the night. When they got home, the two of them watched a romantic movie and it reminded her of his ex-girlfriends. This upset Cervantes and she went to drink vodka in the kitchen with cranberry juice. She attempted to call Gonzalezs ex girlfriends and he broke the phone so that would not happen. She claims she then made it to the AM-PM on the corner to get more to drink. She claims she remembers nothing about the incident of being hit, cut, and imprisoned but remembers vividly everything about the alcohol.

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When questioned about the cops showing up and what happened to her face, she does not remember but says that she felt her face hurting in the morning and that the red marks was because her skin gets irritated when she drinks vodka. During cross-examination, she testifies that her father had died at the beginning of the month and that her and her dad were close. This was an onset to depression from what I gathered from her testimony. At this point Mr. Lara asked if she would like an interpreter so she can better understand what is being said and she said she would like that. An interpreter was found for her and the questions went on. Cervantes admits to a drinking problem and says that it takes away the pain of her fathers death. This is where she says what she had to drink for the night in total. Her and Gonzalez got take out at the restaurant and then went to the liquor store where she bought the Absolute and 2-3 shots. She claims that she gets very aggressive when she is drunk and she instigated much of what happened that night in question. Cervantes testified that she wanted bad things to happen to Gonzalez and that is why she lied to the 9-11 dispatcher, the cops, and to the court during the arraignment trial. She was trying to hurt him. When she was asked about the cut to her left forearm, she said she did it to keep Gonzalez there when he threatened to leave. At this point Mr. Manahan was growing frustrated

with the witness. He maintained his composure but I could tell by the way he sat in the chair and his facial expression. He was not happy with Cervantess testimony at all. Next came the second witness who stated his name was Jeff Smith of the Chula Vista Police Department. Smith has been on the force for twenty-eight years and all of that has been in patrol. He testified that he responded to a DV call on the night of January 25, 2013 at the AMPM store inside the facility. In his report he stated that there was arguing between Gonzalez and Cervantes then she went to take a shower. There was a tussle in the bathroom at this point where

PEOPLE V. ABEL GONZALEZ the bath towel was thrown back and forth several times. There was also a physical altercation with a razor here and Cervantes was smacked a couple times, one of which knocking her to the ground. She got up, apologized a couple times, and went into the hallway on her way to the bedroom. Here in the hallway is the location where Gonzalez supposedly punched her in the chest. Once they made it to the bedroom, Gonzalez pinned her down to the bed and shoved his fingers down her throat. He also threatened her by saying if you call the police I will kill you bitch. Somehow, she finds a way to get dressed, make it to the car down on the ground floor. (They lived on the second floor). Cervantes then locks the doors out of fear and Gonzalez puts himself under the back tires so she would not leave and she starts honking the horn to create a scene. Once on the scene, Smith makes contact with Cervantes. His initial observations were

that she had been smacked in the face from the hand print marks on the right side of her face and the bruising on her smile line on the same side. Cervantes did not appear drunk or suicidal. She was offered an Emergency Protective Order, which she took. Cervantes said that Gonzalez was controlling psychologically. On cross-examination from Mr. Lara, Smith said that alcohol was not an issue and that Cervantes was not overly drunk and was sober enough to drive. Smith wrote the report only a couple hours after this incident and he thought that Cervantes was sincere with her statements to him. When asked about the recanting, he said that over half of the DV victims recant out of fear. The third witness came to the stand and stated that his name was John English. He came on the stand after Officer Smith left the courtroom. English has been on the force for thirteen and a half years working in various departments such as FBI tactical force and gang suppression, now doing photography for this case. He also noted that there was a handprint on Cervantess

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face on the right side. Englishs job was to take the photographs of anything and everything that he thought was important to this case. He started taking pictures about twenty thirty minutes after initial contact. It was a small apartment and he smelled alcohol on Gonzalez but not on Cervantes. All injuries are from this DV case. English has no training in photography and was doing this on his skill. Lara kept asking him if he knew what model his camera was for some reason and English did not know. Lara also kept asking about what kind of computer he used at work too and English did not know that neither. Lara also asked about other police officers modifying or enhancing the pictures and English tried to assure him that no one would do that, but Lara was persistent about these details. Once the pictures are downloaded onto the computer, the pictures are out of his hands. Lara was persistent about the enhancement or modifications still. Lara also asked about logging the pictures somewhere as well but there is no logging of photographs in the CVPD. Closing statements were much like the opening statements. Each side told their story again trying to convince us, the jury, that their side was correct.

PEOPLE V. ABEL GONZALEZ Deliberations By now its Friday afternoon and the closing statements just finished. Judge Wellington gave his instructions for us while on our deliberations. We were then taken in the back to the jury room C. At this point, it is about 15:45 and not much time left before we are told to go home for the day at 1600. During this short period, we take a poll of where we all stood on the case.

3 Count 4 PC 136.1(b)(1) 4 5 2 Count 3 PC 422 3 7 1 Count 2 PC 236 3 8 Count 1 PC 273.5(a) 1 1 10 0 2 Undecided 4 Not Guilty 6 Guilty 8 10 12

As you can see most of us had our mind made. I personally was undecided on count 1, count 2, guilty on count 3 and undecided again on count 4. Mostly I did not want to make a decision with out relooking at the evidence again. Right off, we had to pick a foreperson, and almost immediately all eleven jurors looked right at me and pointed; how could I say no to this. Speaking of evidence, here is what we had: about 30 pictures, both 9-11 calls, a video from the AM-PM store with no audio, and the testimonies of the three witnesses. This part was the worst of it all. There were twelve different points of views and all of them had their time on the floor. Some of the main things that were the hardest thing here to figure out were the

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meaning of common sense, and the ability to use direct and indirect evidence. Some people were so headstrong on using just direct evidence and nothing else. Others did not want to hear about using common sense and we all gathered that common sense did not mean the same to everyone else. That was a bit frustrating. Looking at the evidence it was clear that the mark on the right side of Cervantess face was a hand mark. The imprints of the fingers were still there. There was a bruise on her right side smile line from the nose to the corner of her mouth. In addition, there were marks just under her chin more on the right side of her neck. The left side was red too but had no marks on it. I also noted that her left gold hoop earring was missing. Cervantes also had a cut on her left forearm where just the top layer of skin was removed and nothing more. There were pictures of the trashcan with a couple cans of Bud Light. The apartment was very small and clean. There were small amounts of blood through out the apartment with the most amounts in the kitchen sink. In addition, in the kitchen sink was a basic straight edged knife and a sake bottle on the counter. On the 9-11 call, she seemed stressed but nowhere near drunk. When you saw Gonzalez come into the AM-PM store and confront Cervantes, you can see her back away from him as to avoid him so he will not be in her inner circle. On the other hand, Gonzalez seemed calm as well on the phone on his 9-11 call. The calls from each of them were somewhat weird. Both were on the phone with the 9-11 dispatcher at the same time. The video shows both of them there on the phone and their interactions to one another. She seemed to be either scared or pissed off at him and did not want him near her. Mr. Manahan was able to prove with out a reasonable doubt of count one. I understand that it is hard to prove the other three counts, if not impossible, but there was just much recanting

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for us all to agree that Gonzalez was guilty. Oddly enough, Mr. Laras defense did not come into play at all. None of us for once thought that Gonzalez did this out of protection for others. I do sometimes wonder if we all honestly looked at all the information in an unbiased eye. Most of us thought he did it just from our gut feeling, but we were instructed by the judge to not use that feeling and to go by common sense. I tend to think of that gut feeling as my common sense as well since it is normally right. No one else was willing to find him guilty on all counts due to a lack of evidence. This is where the issue of this came into play. Our final decision is as follows:

Count 4 PC 136.1(b)(1)

12

Count 3 PC 422

12

Count 2 PC 236

12

Count 1 PC 273.5(a) 12 0 2 Undecided 4 6 Not Guilty 8 Guilty 10 12 14

It was a fun overall experience and one I will love to do again. I am grateful that I was picked for this amazing event. It made me realize again that my place is in the courtroom helping people. I have no doubt on that anymore. This was such a revelation on how the courtroom operates and how everyone works together to achieve the main goal of finding the truth and bring justice to light.