Jacobs vs. Lewis- The Court Proceeds
BLACK HAWK COUNTY, Iowa- Today in the courtroom, Judge Jeffery L. Harris first started with the questioning of a mistrial from the day before. The questioning at hand was whether or not the plaintiff, Whitney Jacobs, had caused the domestic abuse case to take an unethical turn against the defendant, Dominic Lewis. Jacobs was represented by the State of Iowa under Molly Edwards; Lewis by attorney Kathryn Mahoney. After consideration, Judge Harris decided that there had not been a mistrial, and the trial would proceed throughout the course of the day and into tomorrow.
Arriving in the courtroom, everyone was very friendly and kindly asked what my purpose being there today was. Upon learning I was reporting for an assignment, I was given background information on the case from attorney Mahoney. It was nice to have some idea what was going in the case since it was not the first day of the trial. The day before, when Jacobs was testifying, she let it slip to the jury that the defendant, Lewis, had been on parole. Simply stating that he was on parole told the jury that Lewis had previously spent time in jail. The trial was immediately stopped, and the parties were asked to come back the next day with reasons to proceed or not to proceed with the case. Both were told to promptly be ready at 9am today to state their case on mistrial.
I was in the courtroom by 8:30am to observe the environment. After reading the information provided by Mahoney, I noticed that Lewis was entering the courtroom. He looked very solemn and put together in a red and white checkered button down, black dress pants, and shined dress shoes. I then noticed a sheriff sitting in the corner who seemed pretty disinterested and annoyed by his body language. Both Edwards and Mahoney were seated at their desks looking through papers and waiting for Harris. Around 8:45, Judge Harris walked into the courtroom and made sure both parties had everything ready and had all the knowledge presented. Also in the courtroom was the court reporter, Carrie, the court attendant, Pat, and three other publics listening as I was.
Around 8:55, I was starting to get a little confused because Jacobs still hadn’t entered the room. Judge Harris asked Edwards where her party was, and Edwards responded that she told her client to be present at 8:45 and had tried contacted her this morning with no response. Clearly getting impatient, Harris continued without Jacobs at 9:10am–ten minutes behind schedule.
Mahoney was the first to present her side of the mistrial. “Judge, there is no way to go on with this trial,” she said. “It diverts the jury to see Lewis in a different character.” Mahoney wanted a new jury to be brought in which would essentially start the entire trial over; she brought up past trials in which the jury was biased after hearing a bad comment made by a witness. Harris was not having anything Mahoney was bringing to the table, and at one point made the comment, “looks like we are talking about apples and oranges.” The previous cases that Mahoney was referencing did not see to reflect on this case in the judges perspective. With that being said, I often saw judge Harris roll his eyes. “It doesn’t pain me one bit, I follow the law,” he said. This really showed that the references Mahoney was making had nothing to do with what was happening here today.
While Mahoney was given her side of things, I noticed that Edwards was intently taking notes and reviewing something on her laptop. She seemed very put together and ready for anything even after the flustered state of not having her party there. I was also noticing that Lewis had his head down most of the time until one point he kept looking over his shoulder towards the door. It looked as if he knew someone was out there because he also kept smirking. I did not notice anyone outside of the door, so I am not sure what Lewis was looking at, but the sheriff quickly stepped in. All the sheriff had to do was step out of his chair and give Lewis a look and the distraction never happened again. Meanwhile, there was still no sign of Jacobs.
Mahoney finishes her defense, and now Edwards make her stand against whether or not the trial should continue. Her main point was that Jacobs wasn’t properly aware of the rules of evidence and the court had no reason to believe that Jacobs made the comment intentionally. After Edwards made her point, Harris decided that the trial can continue. “There is reason to believe Jacobs statement was made in ill-will,” he added.
The next part of the trial was to bring in the jury. At this time, Jacobs also showed up and was also brought into the room; she was wearing jeans and a casual shirt. Pat, the court attendant, brought in the jury in which everyone had to stand. The first thing that I noticed was that everyone in the jury was Caucasian with most being male and what looked like over 40 years old. Harris addresses the jury about the problem of mistrial at hand, and makes sure that the jurors know that they cannot make a decision based on previous knowledge of Lewis being on parole. One of the jurors denied the instructions saying that he, “could not just forget about the information presented.” Harris then asked the jury to leave, and consulted with both parties to ask if it was okay for him to excuse the juror who denied. Both parties agreed. The jury is brought back in and the one juror is prompted to leave. The rest of the trial continues.
I was unable to stay for the entire trial, but the court reporter informed me that the trial would most likely go into tomorrow as well with how many witnessing were left to testify. I was able to stay for the entire testimony of Jacobs in questioning by Edwards and part of the questioning by Mahoney.
Edwards did a lot of questioning about the night that the abuse call was made and asked many detailed questions, such as “How many beers did you have?” and “Who was in the car with you?.” One of things that I noticed was that when Jacobs would answer with just a nod or a “mhm”, Edwards would always proceed with, “Was that a yes?” or “Was that a no?”; those continually questions got annoying, but I understand why parties have to ask. Edwards also brought forward two exhibits–A and B1-5. Exhibit A was the 911 call made on April 5th, 2017. The call was hard to understand at some points, but I could feel the distress that Jacobs was in by the screaming. Additionally, one of the final questions by Edwards really caught me off guard. Edwards asked, “Do you want to press charges?”, and Jacobs replied, “no,” in tears. If she didn’t want to press charges, why was the trial going on in the first place? I felt like the whole incident could have been resolved a long time ago if Jacobs had decided she didn’t want to press charges before trials happened. Our court system is too sacred for time to be wasted on cases that could have been avoided.
When Mahoney was questioning Jacobs, she admitted to telling officers on the scene a different story than what really happened. Jacobs did hit Lewis with a bottle, and based on Jacobs’ answers, it seemed as if Lewis never hit Jacobs. Jacobs had just called the cops out of drunken anger. Jacobs stated, “I wouldn’t have said the things I did that night in the right mind. Hearing that 911 tape was embarrassing.”
Halfway through the questioning by Mahoney, Harris called for a recess. It was then that I left the courtroom.
This experience showed me that our court system goes through so many processes to provide a fair trial for everyone involved. I have been called to jury duty twice since turning 18 and both times I was unable to attend. To be honest, I didn’t want to attend in the first place. However, now knowing how a courtroom works and how exciting trials can be with raw emotions in the room, I will now gladly participate in jury duty when summoned.
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