Now and Then, Why the Present is Very Different from the Past

It has become common to define ourselves as a Knowledge Society, usually in contrast to the Industrial Society. Or before that the Agricultural Society. These are sloppy definitions, for sure, for they immediately beg the question how we can have industry without knowledge or live with knowledge without making stuff, let alone growing food. I suppose the point is, how many of us are engaged in these necessities. Today more people than ever are part of the "creative class", the folks that simply research, study, teach, write or create while a smaller and smaller portion of the population is needed for production or food.

While this is pretty well understood, the focus on these definitions is on the material aspects of society rather than what is going on in us, the people in society, human minds and their thinking.
Outwardly it would seem people grow older on average and they are taller as well, they can run faster and operate complicated stuff with ease, but generally it is assumed that human needs and abilities and the great drivers that makes us tick, remained pretty constant throughout history. Love, competition, aggression, fear, the desire to socialize, get recognition. We assume that caveman was subjected by pretty much those same forces and, indeed, pictures, narratives, books and music suggest as much. While technology changed, the human remained much the same.

What if this is assumption dramatically wrong? What if a medieval farmer who could magically be transported into  our life would not just be hopelessly overwhelmed by our technology and would have no clue what to do with I phones, TV's or cars, he would also be aghast about how women and children live and behave, about the multitude of races, about the pace with which we race through the day? About the fact that so many different things are all considered "right" at the same time, our way of questioning things and allowing new ideas very hour of our lives? Did we ever consider that he, who lived in the middle ages would have lived in a time where things at his birth were exactly the same as things were when he died and then the same again for his children and children's children?

In spite of all the technological progress of the last two hundred years, knowledge about knowledge itself has been slow in coming. We have decoded DNA and know how genes program our bodies but we know very little what ideas are, how knowledge manifests itself or what consciousness is. Of course, these questions have been asked throughout history, typically known as the "meaning of life", yet it is fascinating how much these remain still questions with no answer. We still struggle with the concepts of  the "soul" or the crudely mechanical constructs of the Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego invented by Freud and Jung to explain the forces that form our mind and consciousness. Neurologists are feverishly tracking the electric currents fired off by neurons trying to find what thought and emotions are what or what may make the two different. While we know that society certainly creates common patterns in thinking and emotion we still like to think of ourselves as singularities, one of a kind prototypes, somehow driven by a mix of nurture and nature but also "free will".

While we are conscious of the fact that technological and social change have accelerated, few have a concept for logarithmic or exponential developments and many of us are, in spite of two and a half centuries of enlightenment, still deeply influenced by the cyclical world concepts of eastern philosophy in which things turn in cycles and circles without actual progress. These cyclical philosophies, actually even had a renaissance in recent decades, driven by all those who where frightened by the fast speed in which we moved away from "paradise" and our place in nature. Indeed, critical thought would have to admit that the possibilities created by technology exceed knowledge, morale and ethics, the very foundations and faculties to exert some control. Hippies and tea-partiers are united in their attempt to slow things down. The ones preach unity with nature over progress the other "the America they know and grew up in" over the change they think is brought about by sinister forces.

But nature as our model is tricky. It isn't a paradise and it sure isn't static and also not cyclical. It has entropy and it appears to have a clear arrow of time. It can't be fully symmetrical since matter somehow won out over anti-matter. The universe is getting colder and is expanding in an ever accelerating fashion. This, after all, may be an appropriate analogy for the human condition.

Some philosophers and scientists are trying to apply the methods to explain genes and their reproduction to ideas as well. They call those memes. Memes as societal formations of ideas, patterns that mutate and procreate and hop from person to person and from generation to generation. But while genes are quite slow in their adaptions to the change, memes are exploding just like the universe into wider and wider horizons of knowledge and understanding. This journey into infinity might just have begun. While our imaginary medieval surprise guest would be quite confused in our world, his puzzlement would be nothing compared to the ours if we could see the very world in which our very own children will live when they will be old. The change that will sweep through this century would make us utter strangers in it.

Reference literature: David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity, Penguin Books 2011
Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos

Juror #13

On November 13, after three hours of waiting and being processed in various ways, I stood in Judge Barney’s courtroom on the third floor of the county court house in front of the two prosecutors, the defendant and the two defense lawyers. They all looked me briefly up and down and then both sides agreed:“Acceptable”.

Thus I became juror #13. I took a seat in the jury box.

It was a surprise to me that more than twelve jurors would be selected and that “alternates” were a normal and reasonable occurrence injury selection. I should soon see why. But when I sat down I thought being the spare tire was the worst fate, for I would have to listen to everything while I would not get to deliberate or vote.

Eventually fifteen of us were jammed into the jury box. The judge, the defense and the “State” had taken their places as well, the defendant in his light blue shirt was well in my sight-line. #13 was a good seat for that, also close to the audience where some family seems to sit. The judge,a middle aged black female gave us general instructions, sort of what they had already told us all morning but only now, after actually being selected, were my ears open.

Then she sent us to our jury room where we were released for lunch. We received our phones back which we had just surrendered and could go our merry way, but just for 45 minutes. It seemed so implausible now after we were told to speak to nobody about anything related to this case.  But there I was outside the court house back in the world I knew. This freedom felt already sweet after only the briefest of interruptions.

After this interlude, we freedom and electronic devices alike were locked away while we lined up in the order of our seats to walk collision-free into the courtroom and the jury box, now in full and official function. We learned that “all rise” not only for the judge but for the entering jury as well.

Proceedings started with the opening statements. The defense laid out the case for us from their perspective, trying to explain the complicated events and what we had to expect.  As if to confuse us, the prosecution immediately followed with a very different story.

While the case was still an entirely blank sheet for us, we hungrily took the brush strokes with which the defense painted the picture,after all, this was the first information we received about the case. Right before us unfolded bits and pieces of the type court room drama we know from TV, enacted only for us jurors, it seemed. The attorneys marched up and down the jury box, trying to make eye contact.

The judge had explained that these opening statements were not evidence and should not be considered when we deliberated guilt or innocence.

 It became immediately clear that we had a tough case: Murder and attempted murder in one crime act.State and defense warned us that we would get to see “shady characters” that we would “our daughters not want to go out with”. A statement that I as father of five daughters could easily relate to,even though the State used it for the defendant while the defense characterized witnesses which we had yet to see the same way.

I peered over to the defendant who sat small, and quiet, his head lowered.  Rarely daring a glance sideways to the jury he appeared already somewhat defeated. If one can say such a thing at all, he didn’t look like a murderer. Rather, just sitting there silently,in his slender shape and blue dress shirt, he reminded me of a well connected up and coming Washington developer I had met a few times.

The opening statements quickly conveyed a rough outline of the crime and what had preceded it. Four people who all know each other had gotten together in a car, drove around for a while, left the vehicle in a dark forlorn cul de sac of a yet to be completed subdivision. Shortly afterwards,the only girl in the group is dead, her boyfriend has been shot and left behind for dead, the two others have fled. People who hear the gunshots call police which eventually find the victims. The surviving boyfriend immediately sets police on the track of his friends. Both will be arrested within 24 hours after the shooting.

One of the alleged perpetrators sits in front of us, the other has already had his day in court, although we won’t be told the verdict.The wounded victim has recovered and will be the prosecutions key witness.

Many names and nicknames swirl around in our heads and notes. (All names have been altered). Shacky, the other perpetrator, his real name Bryan McLod. Cornell Hull, the other victim, was also called Coco. Andthen, of course, the defendant, Emrich Altona Smith, now 19 years old and the murder victim Catelyn Dresser, 17 years young when her life was taken. A somewhat interesting detail is that the victim is not only the only female, she is also the only white. At the early stage of this trial, no plausible motive emerges why these four friends would have trained guns on each other. Neither does it appear obvious to us jurors who shot whom or if anybody other than the four occupants of the car may be involved.

Back in my home for the night I realize how close these events were to my life, geographically and because of the age of my children.  Yet, language, culture and circumstances of this world of drugs, gangs and violence were worlds away from my experiences.  Crime can bring it all together, as was not only demonstrated by my presence here in the courtroom but also by the mother of the killed daughter sitting next to the mother of the injured but recovered shooting victim although the killed girl apparently never has had a run-in with the law while CoCo ad just been released from prison at the time of the crime.

 Over the next two days  the prosecution will line up witness after witness and expert after expert to prove that a gun, retrieved in a hiding place, was the murder weapon and that DNA clearly links the defendant to the crime scene. Gang experts explain gang culture to us, the prosecution is trying to distill motives out of that culture. Murder as admission test to a gang, or retribution for going with a girl that a gang leader may have laid claim to. Maybe snitching since the surviving victim had just been released from prison before that hot July night, that brought him into a helicopter and the shock trauma center. It is one of the great revelations from ballistics tests and forensic evidence that two guns were fired at Catelyn and that shots from either one could have killed her. The second weapon never found.

Obviously, the most interesting witness is the shooting victim, Coco. After all, he was clearly there when Catelyn was shot. The defense does what they can to render him not credible, and indeed, some of his statements are contradicting themselves, especially the story about the defendant’s cellphone, whether it was lost (as he says it was in the lonely dark court and caused everybody to get out of the car to search for it) or if it was clearly sitting on the dashboard as he had also testified. It remains murky, why he would have encouraged his girlfriend to get out of the car as he admitted he did. The defense points out that Coco was once again in prison and had a motive to lie so he would be released early. The defense attorneys also pointed out that one of the investigators bought Coco lunch while he transported him to an interview and could have told him the details that CoCo now spits out as his own experience in the case. The defense, in their closing argument, went as far as describing him as one of the shooters, potentially even the murderer. They described in vivid colors a possible shootout between rivaling gangs in which the girl just happened to get caught up.

When four days of arguments, witness testimony and cross examinations had passed, the hard evidence, indeed, allowed a number of scenarios even though it was indisputable that two potentially deadly bullets retrieved from Catelyn’s body came from two different weapons, one from the weapon that had been found. DNA linked all participants to the crime scene or the vehicle. Still no direct evidence was found on the weapon or on the perpetrators that clearly proved who shot whom.

What was the jury to do? Isn’t guilt beyond any reasonable doubt the condition for a guilty verdict as well as the “innocent until proven guilty” maxim that is the hallmark of any real justice system?

By the time closing arguments had wrapped up, the jury consisted of only the necessary twelve members. Already on the morning of the second day two jurors were eliminated due to whatever legal concerns brought forth by either defense or prosecution and I advanced from being substitute juror #13 to actual juror #5. On day three another juror was dismissed, thus even juror #15 was now a regular.

It was Friday evening and the prospect of a reconvening after the weekend became increasingly likely. But the judge sent us into deliberations after reading to us the charges again which included first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and two counts of use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. All seemed to hinge around the key question, did the defendant kill Catelyn?

The jury would have been hopelessly stuck, if that, indeed,would have been the main question because it wasn’t even proven that Emrich Smith had fired a weapon at all.

 But, alas, it would be simpler than that. As the judge explained, if two people premeditate murder,both are on the scene and a person is, in fact, killed, it is sufficient to be present and not intervene to be guilty of first degree murder. This is the legal principle of “accomplice liability”. CoCo’s witness testimony that Emrich called out “kill him” when he tried to flee after the first shots rang out would be a key ingredient in establishing that Emrich would not have been just a passive bystander in the commission of the crimes.

It was Friday after 6pm when the jury gathered in the always too hot or too cold jury room with its drafty windows. Finally we were not only allowed but required to discuss the case with each other. To date we had barely talked, afraid to say something non permissible. Our dozen was a diverse group,by age, gender, race and background. Although juror #1 was technically the jury foreperson, she was rather unsure how to go about the deliberation while the youngest, a white male took several successful attempts to guide the deliberations.  As often in cases of severe emotional stress, people need comic relief and there was laughter and banter that felt somehow inappropriate in light of the gravity of the case with one young person’s life already gruesomely ended out and a second now in our hands.

We had learned very little about the defendant. His history was not brought up and he never took the stand. What we knew about him was from tapes of recorded phone calls he had made from prison. Those stood in stark contrast to his appearance; the two hour recordings were throughout a barely understandable foul mouthed rant about a mix of trivia and items possibly relevant to the case. It turned out that a few in the jury had been able to follow those tapes well, but most of us did not comprehend much other than that he was frustrated that his friends didn’t do more to help him out, at least with some phone money. There was no clarity if he had, as the prosecutors maintained, alluded to his gun. His elaborations used code words and extreme street slang that had only been partly decoded by the gang expert from the County police.

Several on the jury wanted to discuss the behavior of the crown witness in order to find out how credible he was. I thought, though, that with the newly learned principle of accomplice liability, that it didn’t matter if CoCo had lied or not. That even if the defense’s scenario would have been true, namely that there was, in fact, a shootout and that the missing second gun may have belonged to him, this would not change the fact that the defendant was in cahoots with the already earlier convicted  Bryan and that they together drove the victims into the cul de sac and that together they assaulted them. Whether two guns were used, one by each of them, or if one of them shot both victims with one gun or possibly with two, is ultimately non material under the accomplice principle.  

An hourly later, we were not anywhere near a consensus. We had spent almost all the time to explain the case and available evidence to one juror who simply hadn’t followed the proceedings with enough care. He kept saying that the case is too grave to rush it and I assume, that secretly every single juror was glad for the added review time, even if we had now run against the time the judge had given for a postponement until Monday. After we sent a message that we may be close, though,  the judge ordered pizza and we got some more time. I can only imagine how high the tension runs in the courtroom where the defendant, his lawyers, the state attorneys, the judge and the families wait for the verdict. Back in the jury room we finally determined that we all felt comfortable being asked the big question. Do we find the defendant guilty of premeditated murder or not.  Twelve times the answer was: Guilty. That eliminated the also possible second degree murder charge and made the weapon charges basically inevitable.

It was after eight on that Friday evening, when we marched back into the court room and took our seats in the jury box for the last act:To listen to our forewoman how she responded to each of the three judge’s questions with a low voice “guilty” and then confirm that she had spoken for all of us. 

Catelyn’s mother cried. The defendant did not show any emotion, the young state attorneys looked pleased with themselves, the defense lawyers less so.

Leaving the courthouse into the cold crisp evening, free to go wherever I pleased, I thought of the young defendant who was heading back to prison, whatever hope he might have had for a release, completely dashed. One more young black male in prison, for a very long time. I did not feel accomplished, neither as juror #13 nor as #5.

The experience haunted me for days. I went on the internet and tried to find whatever news that had been published about this case which somehow had kept a pretty low profile in the media both when the crime happened and also now, during the trial. I found that Emrich Smith and his father had been mentioned in the local paper when he was only four years old in a little story about his father moving his hair cutting business outside on Monument Street so he could keep an eye on his son.

It was only at the sentencing hearing that I learned more about Elrich. Almost three months had passed since the trial, Christmas had been celebrated,  a brand new year had begun when I settled back in the same courtroom where time seemed to have stood still. Emrich was the only one who had changed, he had gained weight so it seemed to me. Maybe it was only that he wore two T shirts on top of each other instead of the blue dress shirt. Defense and State attorneys looked like they never had left the courtroom at all, each one of them wore the exact same clothes, hairstyles and facial expressions as back in November and Catelyn’sfamily members sat in the same places as in November.

As at the trial, the defense got to talk first with a somewhat impassioned but not very well performed plea for mercy. I learned that Elrich had been born to a drug addict and had drugs in his blood at birth. That his parents didn’t care for him and he lived with an ant. Then at 4, as I had found out already, he lived with his father; but it was only for one year. When he was nine the mother tried to be a parent but didn’t last any longer than the father and then left her son once more. Thus, Emrich had jumped from place to place all his young life. The mother’swhereabouts were unknown today, the defense lawyer pointed out and that neither parent ever contacted court or defense during the entire time between the crime and now. We learned that Emrich had his first contact with the Department for Juvenile Services at the age of 12. "Emrich never had a chance. Temper justice with mercy" pleaded the defense in closing. Naturally the State prosecutors didn’t see it that way, they presented the young man as one thatcouldn’t be reformed, that had been accused of robbery, arson, assault and violation of probation even before Catelyn died. As a son whose father was on record as having said on occasion of the arson case: "Emrich has a demon in him". That even now in prison he is alleged to have associations with BGF (black gorilla family) gang  and was involved with assault. That he had tested positive for a certain drug even during the trial. "He is beyond rehabilitation". 

The prosecution called on Catelyn’s father who appeared with his “lady friend” and then the mother for testimony on the emotional harm their daughter’s death had inflicted on them.  Finally, the defendant got one more chance to address the court. He did not use it.

The verdict came swiftly. The judge pointed out that it was impossible to undo what had been done or do now what should have been done then. Then she read her sentences: Life without parole and 20 years each for the each of the firearm and assault charges. The defense noted that they will appeal.

Handcuffs clicked around both of Emrich’s wrists. Then he was guided out of the courtroom, I detected what looked like defiance in his eyes. He would not agree that justice had been served here or anywhere in his life. Catelyn’s mother and father went their separate ways: Parents who lost a child. They will never find closure.

As the judge said, it isn’t for the justice system to fix the past. But true justice cannot exist, if the society continues to fail so many children.