Alright, well welcome back to another episode.
We have an interesting topic today.
I'm sure everybody listening that has been on Jerry duty has very fond memories of being
on Jerry.
And another interesting thing about this guest, if my mom is listening, she'll be proud of
this.
My mom taught me growing up that there is an OBU best and OBU West.
And I went to the OBU West of Oklahoma Baptist University and my mom went to OBU, OBU best
that watched all Baptist University.
And my guest Katrina went to a West all Baptist University.
So Katrina, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?
Sure, absolutely.
Yeah.
And it's funny.
And I was on another podcast episode where the host was reading where I graduated and
he said a graduate of Ocheeta Baptist University.
He did that intro though after we had recorded it.
And I'm glad that he sent me the preview because I was like, you know, and he was from, I think,
maybe Michigan.
So anyway, when I went back and listened to the podcast after the fact, he just completely
eliminated the name.
It's just one of those, I tried to spell it phonetically.
It's like wash at all.
But yeah, if you're not familiar, it looks like a doozy to pronounce.
But yes, I did graduate from WashTall with a degree in professional accounting.
Did public accounting for a while?
I've been a financial planner and advisor, more specifically a compliance officer for
a local wealth management firm here in Hot Springs, Arkansas for the past 16 years now.
Been married for 27 years.
My husband is a chaplain and was a pastor and for many years before he began doing the
chaplain work.
We have five children, two biological, three adopted, two of the adopted ones came from
foster care.
The third one more or less kind of adopted off the streets.
That's a whole other story.
But then more recently, like you mentioned, I wrote a book, published at the beginning
this year, and it was after last year I had had this experience where I was called to
serve on jury duty for a murder trial.
And I won't completely give everything away, but the short story is I ended up with contempt
of court charges.
A mistrial was granted in the original murder trial.
And I had my own hearing and was faced with possibility of jail time.
And it was five months of hard, just a really trying time on my life where I was kind of
simultaneously juggling significant heartbreaking situations with a couple of my kiddos.
And got to the other side of it and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna write the...
I'm gonna tell my side of the story here.
Yeah, so with this whole process, let's kind of start in just some basics, maybe not necessarily
just with your individual story.
But overall, through your process and what you've learned, what are some of the...
What are just some of the flaws of the kind of the jury system that we have that maybe
a lot of people that maybe haven't been in a jury or haven't been involved in a tough
case don't quite understand?
Right.
So, I mean, that's a little bit of a hard question to answer.
I can tell you one of the problems I personally had with the jury system.
Again, part of this is me and my personality.
But what I discovered that as a jury member, you're very much...
You're expected to sit, listen, do as you're told, ask no questions, go with group think.
And that I'm very much of an analytical, want to know the whole story, the full picture.
I view the responsibility as a huge one that you are kind of tasked with the responsibility
of really determining...
In this case, I mean, we're talking about murder in the first degree charge.
I mean, this was...
And with a...
Everybody knows that when you serve on a jury, you're not allowed to seek out information
about the case outside of the courtroom and you're not allowed to talk about the case.
Even a month, this is a four-day trial.
And so, even us as jurors, when we would be in the jury room, you're not allowed to speak
about it when witnesses are giving testimony.
You can't raise your hand and say, can I ask a question?
You can't do any of that.
And I really struggled because it became very clear that information is very much cherry
picked for the jury and it's given to you in a very emotionally manipulative way.
I've watched...
I'm sure everybody has one time or another watched a TV show or a movie where there's
a court scene and you see all of the theatrics that the attorneys put on.
I really, truly thought that was just made for movies.
And I got in there and sat down for opening statements and I thought, oh my goodness,
these people have a minor in theatre or something.
And I'm like, you know, and that really kind of bothered me because I was like, I mean,
I understand they're trying to hold our attention, but I'm not here to be entertained.
I only want the facts.
And it's kind of like, I'm not one that can be emotionally manipulated.
I mean, maybe for some people, a fact or a piece of testimony, if it's told in a certain
way, maybe they believe it or I don't know, but I'm very much just giving me the facts.
Things like the prosecution displaying a large blown up picture of the victim's autopsy
body for us to view during closing arguments.
I mean, is that necessary?
You see what I'm saying?
Like, you know, pulling a victim, the victim, a family member, a daughter of the victim
up to testify who was estranged from her father for five years, no communication or been with
him at all, has no ability to testify to the event or his character or anything.
It's just simply for us as a jury to see a family member emotionally upset.
You see what I'm saying?
It's like, I don't doubt that this individual went through, regardless of whether they were
estranged, that's irrelevant.
They, having their father killed, that's going to be traumatic, but not a credible witness.
Only to play on the jury's emotions.
You see what I'm saying?
So, my problem is, you know, if you are the judge in a case, right, you have the ability
to ask questions, you have the ability to...
So in this particular case, there was 17 witnesses called for the state prosecution, 17 witnesses
that did nothing but basically say the same thing over and over again.
She shot her husband...
Oh, I didn't even tell you what the case was.
It was a 60-year-old woman who had shot and killed her husband.
So that's the case.
And she's being charged with first-degree murder.
First-degree, the statute is, we had to be able to say beyond a reasonable doubt that
she intended to kill her husband.
Her claim was self-defense.
So 17 witnesses for the state that all basically say she shot him, which there was never anything
debatable about that.
None of them, though, are able to prove that she intended to.
Well then, so then it's the defense's turn.
And there's 14 witnesses, but every time one gives up to speak, prosecution objects, judge
sustains, and they're not allowed to speak.
Only three of her witnesses were able to speak.
So we're left as a jury not allowed to know what those witnesses were going to testify
about, why it was objected to, and it's kind of like we were given instructions at the
beginning that we as the jury also had the responsibility to judge the witness's credibility,
their character, whether it was relative or not.
And we did not have that opportunity with nearly all of the defense's witnesses.
So I just, I'm like, you know, if you're going to...
I felt like we were very much treated as kind of ignorant.
Like there's lots of...
And obviously none of us went to law school, but if you're going to task us with this responsibility,
then trust us that we're smart enough to have some common sense here.
There's lots of hushed conversations at the bench, and then if they want to hash things
out even more, they ask the jury to leave.
And I'm like, you know, I mean, should I not be viewed as somebody that can determine relevance
versus irrelevance and be able to make a decision based on the facts?
You see what I'm saying?
You know, and the whole...
And I'm doing a whole lot of talking here, so you just interrupt me if you have a question
or something.
But you know, and also the rule about not being able to research the case, those were
all rules that were put into place back when really the only access to information a jury
would have would be outdated newspapers.
You know, maybe hearsay from people on the panel.
You know, nowadays we literally have nonbiased factual information literally at the tips
of our fingertips.
And it's just, you know, I know, so if we just skip forward, so what was my contempt
of court?
What was it that happened?
Well, I...
So throughout this four day trial, well, I guess, you know, the fourth day is when we
deliberated and gave our verdict, you know, so three days worth of hearing this case.
We really never learned much about either the defendant or the victim.
All we really knew is that she was a 60 year old piano teacher who shot and killed her
husband supposedly out of self defense, but anything in the realm of talking about that
self defense was not allowed.
As far as the victim, we knew his name.
We knew his age.
And we knew that he died by a gunshot and that there were allegations that he was an alcoholic
and abusive.
But anything in the realm of talking about possible alcoholism or abusiveness was not
allowed.
What's the rationale between that not being able to be discussed?
So here was the thing, of course, after the fact, I'm a researcher by nature.
So after the fact, you know, I didn't have a problem at all not researching the case
per se because, I mean, sitting there listening to people talk about it for three days, I
could guarantee you I could tell you more about the case than anything I could dig up
online.
But like I said, what I didn't know was those two, the two main people, the defendant and
the victim.
And I was like, and I'm not quite answering your question yet, I'll circle around to it.
But I was like, you know, I just, that night before I was like, before we're going to go
in for deliberation.
I was like, you know, I wonder if I just put his name into this court search engine, if
anything will come up, I put his name in there, nothing came up.
That was the extent of what I had done.
We go back that fourth day after closing arguments, go back to deliberate.
We ended up after we had deliberated.
I, and in the book I write, I'm very transparent with how.
How difficult of a process it was.
I was very emotional during deliberation.
And I, in one thing I talk about in the book is I'm not sure whether it was having to utter
the words guilty about another human being.
I mean, it just really fell heavy on me.
But anyway, after we were done, you know, and I was, and I'm very transparent in the
book about how emotional I was and stuff, I made the offhanded comment.
I said, I don't know about you guys, but it really bothered me that so many of the defendants'
witnesses weren't allowed to speak.
And I wish we knew more about the victim.
And I tried to look him up, but I didn't find anything.
And that was kind of the extent.
You know, we ended up voting unanimously, not guilty on first degree, but guilty on second
degree.
Go out there, give our verdict and sentencing, I think.
You know, praise Jesus, that's over.
Three days later, another juror goes back to the courthouse and files a juror misconduct
complaint against me.
And then the defense attorney grabbed hold of that and wanted contempt of court against
me in a mistrial.
So that's what happened.
Okay, so why did they not allow any of that?
So then after the fact, I then, when we went to the mistrial hearing, as far as, you know,
so we all got summoned back to court.
All the jurors, all the defense, prosecution, witnesses, we all have to go back to court.
And we're like, oh my goodness, what's this about?
They pull us jurors in one at a time.
They saved me for last.
So I'm like, this is about me.
Get in there and this defense attorney just absolutely slanders me, lies about me, rips
me up one side and down the other.
I include the transcript in the book.
It was a horrific experience that I kept hearing him say during that trial arguing that the
state fought so hard to disallow 404B evidence.
So of course I go home and I'm like, what in the world is 404B evidence?
And look it up.
Well, it's evidence that is related to an individual's basically their character based
on prior acts and that it can be disallowed in criminal cases.
The whole idea behind it is, so okay, maybe he had the history and character of being
an alcoholic or abusive, but was he abusive and drunk in that particular moment?
My thing is his history absolutely is relevant because if you've got somebody who has been
abused, there can be that moment where maybe they've been abused worse before than they
have this time, but it just, it finally, you know, they snap, you know, they don't necessarily
plan out a murder, but that kind of heat of the moment kind of thing.
But so that now, that's been changed now that, and it varies from state to state, but I'm
pretty sure now, and this is without me doing lots of research that they can't do that in
self-defense motives for defendants, but that obviously is something recent.
You know, so, so yeah, that was so all of those individuals obviously had something
to testify about either prior incidences or his character or maybe even her character
in general, and they didn't allow any of it, you know, and I'm kind of like, you know,
all of those people could have absolutely been completely incredible, not relevant,
but, you know, I don't know, you know, we weren't given the opportunity to make that
judgment, but yet we were tasked with the responsibilities of literally being the judge
in the situation.
So anyway, that is a, you know, 15 minute answer to your response there of what, you
know, is wrong with the jury system.
There was a lot of nuances to my particular case that was involved in that, that made
it not a cut and dry case where obviously there are some cases out there that are not
going to have all these different nuances, but some people may hear my story and say,
you know, well, there isn't a problem with the justice system, you know, jury number
11, she was obviously the problem, she didn't do what she was supposed to, and I'm like,
I can totally take responsibility for that, but is that one action, me making an offhanded
comment after we had already done deliberations, should that is our justice system so fragile
that that completely overturns the entire trial?
You see what I'm saying?
Like even, even when, so when they pulled us off the court, they pulled us off the court
all in to determine if I had truly committed misconduct, that there was misconduct, like
I said, they pulled all the jurors out one at a time, and they basically asked them if
there had been any misconduct.
There were only two jurors that had any recollection of anything ever even being said, which certainly
goes to say that I obviously was not sitting there in the jury room trying to prejudice
or persuade or you know what I'm saying?
But I just realized how much room there is within the justice system for manipulation
and power plays.
Like I kind of went in there with this idea that it's all about truth and facts and justice,
and I'm like, no, it's about how well you can manipulate rules to your advantage.
It was, it left a bad taste in my mouth for sure.
You know, when you say that to only to have that, and you talk about manipulation, where
my mind kind of immediately goes is like, that if we have a high profile case, and we
want to get a mistrial that two people say something like, what if it's not even true?
Well, I mean, and of course, I'm not going to lie on the stand.
I said, you know, I mean, I, I mean, I guess I mean, I could have been like, no, I didn't
look him up.
I didn't say anything.
But I mean, I wasn't going to do that.
I mean, I said, yeah, I typed his name in the court database.
And I didn't find anything.
And that's what I said.
And, you know, but the thing that was so bizarre about the whole thing that, you know, I said,
most people who read my story, you know, kind of walk away going, what in the world.
So like I said, it was the defense attorney that was the one pushing for a mistrial.
Well, like I said, we came back not guilty on first degree and guilty on second degree.
By him fighting for a mistrial, he opened his client up to the possibility of first
degree murder all over again.
So it was kind of like, you know, I'm sitting there in that courtroom like, and he fought
harder for my contempt of court charges than he fought for his client through four days
of a trial.
And I'm like, what in the world is going on?
Like I don't understand.
Like is he just trying to keep his hands in her pockets to drag this out longer?
You know, he was not a public defender.
He was a private attorney.
So it was just kind of like, you know, and, you know, of course, I ended up having to
go get my own attorney.
And, you know, I sat down with him and, you know, he said, you know, of course, I just,
you know, the weight of feeling like I was the sole cause, I mean, because obviously
there was no maliciousness or ill intent.
Like I went in there wanting to do the best I could for both the prosecution and the defense.
You see what I'm like, both the family of the victim and the defendant.
Like I truly, that was my desire.
And then to have all of this happen and then to complicate it a little bit, just to all
throw this in, another issue was that I knew the judge on a personal level.
And so the defense attorney then throws that out in there.
And so he refuses himself and another judge steps in.
And so then to be put in this position where like, oh my gosh, like what in the world is
happening?
Like, and I was sitting in the first meeting with my attorney and, you know, I'm in tears
and emotional and, you know, because I had written out a statement to read and the judge
would not allow me to read it.
And I'm like, I said, I just wanted the opportunity to apologize.
Like, I, like this was not my intent.
And, you know, and he said, Katrina, he said, you're not a bad person.
He said, you actually are a dream of a juror because it's very apparent you walked into
that trial with the perspective of that defendant was innocent unless you proved her guilty.
And he said, very few people are actually able to walk into a trial with that perspective.
And it was apparent you did.
And which is absolutely the truth.
And why I had a problem right from the get go because, you know, not only you kind of
have, like I mentioned, almost all of her witnesses not being allowed to speak, but also if people
are aware of how it works when you have a trial prosecution goes first with opening statements.
And then the defense goes and then the prosecution gets another go at it.
And then the prosecution gets first go at all their witnesses and then defense second
turn closing arguments.
Prosecution gets first go defense gets to say something then prosecution gets to rebuttal
it all.
And it seemed to vary.
And then also in this case, there were four attorneys for the prosecution and only one
for the defense.
So the whole thing like seemed to vary unbalanced.
Well, the argument for that was, well, because in our justice system, they're innocent, right?
Until proven guilty.
So therefore we give a whole lot more weight coverage, maneuverability or whatever to the
prosecution because they're the ones with the burden of proof.
Well, the reality is that most people go in there wanting the burden to be on proving
they're innocent.
So anyway, you know, my attorney, you know, he said, Katrina, do jurors talk about the
case, you know, amongst themselves and probably even with family members and friends outside
the courtroom if it's a multiple day trial.
He's like, absolutely they do.
I mean, I mean, maybe there are some that are like black and white rules and, you know,
they, he said, now, do jurors probably look stuff up about the case and the parties involved?
He said, probably most people spend half their day on Google and why not?
He says, it's natural.
You're going to do it.
He said, has things that people have found online been brought up during time in the jury
room?
He said, probably, you know, it's probably happened.
He said, but has another juror come back three days later after unanimous decision and complained
about it?
He said, never in the history of, you know, at least our county, you know, I can't speak,
you know, nationwide.
But he said, no, he said, Katrina, you're a unicorn.
He said, and then to have the testimony that was given in the hearing, not only, but then
to also the judge decide on a mistrial is, he says, he says, we really don't even know
what to do with you.
Well, I was like, I, my name's Katrina.
My life is just kind of one big train wreck after another.
With this fellow juror, did you have any suspicion at all that any, like that did you have any
bad blood or anything?
Or was this?
Well, so that's, that's interesting that you asked that because I did have, like when
we all got called back to court and stuff.
And you know, after they put me on the hot seat and I locked eyes with her sitting out
there in the courtroom and it hit me.
I was like, it's her.
She's the one that came up.
And so when we were deliberating, I, you know, like I said, it's this is a woman, six years
old, shot killed her husband.
She'd never, you know, been in trouble before.
She was a piano teacher for her whole life and claiming self-defense and stuff.
When we very first started deliberating our first initial vote that we took, there was
actually nine jurors that voted guilty on first degree murder.
When we first did our, before we really kind of then got in and started arguing about it.
She was the one that was most vocal on wanting first degree murder and the most reluctant
to back down off of that and go with second.
And I disclose a couple of our conversations and, you know, she very much was like, you
know, like, you know, what about the victims family and they deserve justice.
And, you know, like, you know, like she would, you know, she talks about an incident where
like she passed the defendant in the parking lot and oh my gosh, I can't believe, you know,
very much viewed her as like just simply the title of murder.
And then when we got to sentencing, how we decided to handle sentencing was, so the maximum,
the maximum sentencing for the second degree murder and there was also an additional charge
where, and I think this again, I think it's just state by state, if you kill somebody
with a firearm, you can, is an additional charge, which was, you know, ridiculous.
Some like so, if you blundered them to death with a mallet, that's, you know, no extra
time for that, but you shoot them with a gun, you're anyway, you know, try to make sense
out of politics.
But so since she had shot him with a gun, there was some, an additional sentencing for
that, but combined, the maximum was 40 years.
So we decided how we would handle it is we would go around the room and we would just
give the number of how long we thought the sentencing should be.
And I mean, I don't know, I don't know about you, but I don't know if you can imagine being
that situation, like you're getting ready to say how long somebody ought to spin and
we're also, we're talking about a 60 year old woman, you know, like it was huge to me,
like I couldn't understand how these people were like, while we were taking breaks, like
talking about basketball and weather, I just, I obviously don't have the aptitude to be
a judge to do that day in and day out.
But so we start to go around the room and as we go around the room, it's 20 years, 20
years, 20 years, 20 years.
So it was obvious and very much in juries, you realize how real the whole group think
is like, I'm not a group think person though, I don't have a problem going against grain.
But you could tell like whoever the first couple of people, whatever they said, you
could tell everybody else is like, I'm not going to make waves 20 years, 20 years.
Well, it got to her and she said 40 years.
You know, she, like I said, she was very much like they need to be hung, rod in prison.
Well, I was the last person to throw the vote out there.
So to counter off, what we were going to do is we're going to take an average of what
everybody said and that would be our sentencing.
So the counteract her 40 years, I said zero to basically just nullify that and it keep
it at 20 years.
So when I did that, I got a really big eye roll from her, you know.
So anyway, so I saw all that.
She obviously, she and I had some differences.
But here's the thing, I don't think that she went back up there to the courthouse to complain
about me necessarily out of a vengeful type attitude.
I honestly don't think she thought all of that was going to happen.
Even what I mean, like I think she just kind of wanted to, I think she probably was in
for, you know, and again, I'm jumping a little bit into politics here.
I think she's kind of like one of those like mass police kind of people like a Karen, if
you may, where it's like she didn't follow the rules and she admitted she didn't follow
the rules.
And by golly, we got to make doesn't matter if the fact that she quote unquote broke rule
had zero, you know, zero implications in anything.
Everybody needs to be aware that she broke the rule, you know, like that kind of attitude.
Yeah.
And where your focus on the rule actually causes more collateral damage than the breakage
of the rule would have.
You know, and that's why I say the mass police, you know, it's kind of, you know, and I know
that's not what this episode is about.
But you know, it's like we got to enforce this rule because, you know, it's important
because it protects people and saves people.
And you don't think about all the collateral damage that this quote unquote rule causes.
And, you know, I kind of equate it to, you know, like in school zones, the speed limits
like 20 miles an hour.
For obvious reasons, there could be children running around that's not paying attention.
And so you should go slower.
It's a rule that makes sense.
But if you are so focused on not going over 20 that you're just staring at your speedometer
to make sure you don't go over 20 and you hit a kid because of it.
Okay.
So you completely missed the point.
Right.
So it's kind of like those, like I said, the mass police, like, well, I wasn't going
over 20, so I didn't do anything wrong.
No.
Anyway, so yeah, that's my crazy story.
During your side of things, like, so you're in contempt of court and all of that.
How long of a process did that take for your own justice system?
Right.
So it felt like 500 million years.
It was actually only five months.
But the only reason it took five months was because so, and I wrote the book in kind of
a diary format to where, so the beginning of the story is April 9th of last year.
And it was actually the day of my daughter's wedding.
So I was in the midst of preparing for her wedding when my phone buzzes and I summoned
to jury duty on Monday.
The wedding was on Saturday and I'm like, awesome, I've got to go to jury duty.
So that's the start of the story is April 9th.
So it was like, and then it was like April 13th or whatever when she came back and complained.
Anyway, in the next week or something.
So then I guess they all had their meetings at the courthouse and decided, yep, we've
got a defense attorney.
He's like, yeah, I want contempt to court, I want a mistrial.
We ended up having, we all got called back to court.
I think it was like May 12th, I believe, somewhere in there.
We got the letter the next week, you know, saying we have to go back to court.
And so there was like a couple of weeks of kind of like this anxiety of like, what in
the world, you know, like what's going on?
So I had a couple of weeks there of, so we went back to court, we go back to court,
like I said, I think it was like May 12th.
So it was almost a month after the trial.
And then at that hearing, that's when the judge says, yep, you're in contempt to court.
And she gave me a summons to show cause for June 27.
So that was then another six-ish weeks of, you know, where I was meeting with my attorney
and really just kind of feeling like my world was falling apart.
Like I completely took myself off all social media.
You know, there was these horrible news articles that were like, don't Google my name, like
just don't Google my name.
I've had another podcast where they posted links to the articles with the podcast.
I'm like, it just makes no sense to turn.
But you know, like I said, I'm a financial advisor, a compliance officer, no less, in
a small town.
You know, I mean, people talk, right?
And it, when it's just a very, it was a very difficult time for me because I was also juggling
some really heart-wrenching stuff with my kids.
And so I just kind of stepped, I mean, didn't step away from life.
And when you read the book, you'll see what I'm talking about, but as far as, you know,
disengaged from social media and that kind of thing.
But then so we go to court on June 27th, and I'm thinking, I just want it over with.
You know what I mean?
Well, so we go and my attorney objects to the fact that the prosecution, the state, did
not bring any witnesses.
And the judge agrees and continues the case.
And it all, and I spell it all out and include the court transcripts and stuff in the book.
It all happened very, very fast.
And it was like, you know, he was wanting like the juror that complained about me.
Like he wanted a chance to cross-examine her.
Which I'm kind of like, yeah, absolutely.
I'd love to have her on the hot seat as well.
I said, but can we say never mind?
We don't object to no witnesses.
Like seriously, I just want this over.
But you know, it all just happened real fast.
She continued it and reset it for August 3rd.
So I'm like, you know, another six weeks of just, you know, like that pit in your stomach.
You know, in the whole entire time, I have my attorney telling me that I could face a
year in jail.
And you know, to sit in a room, you know, when you're like, I mean, a professional,
you know, a Christian woman, you know, a leader in the church, like a year, like it, like
the oxygen left the room, you know what I mean?
Like, and trying to like, finding myself trying to plan and prepare for like the worst was
just, it was kind of like, I kind of felt like I was in this alternate reality.
So then, you know, we, we have, you know, finally do have my, my hearing on August 3rd.
So that's April, May, June, July, August.
That's only four months.
So another month goes by and I'll just kind of leave a little bit of a cliffhanger.
The reason why I say it was five months is because I really didn't feel like I was, even
though, you know, I didn't have to spend any time in jail, you'll have to just read the
book to find out what my quote punishment was.
And you'll say, seriously, but I didn't feel like it was true.
Everybody was like, aren't you so glad it's over and all that?
Well, there was still this supposed mistrial that for this defendant and I didn't like
any time her case was talked about in the newspaper, my name was talked about in the
newspaper.
So I didn't feel like it was going to be completely over for me until it was over for her.
And that didn't wrap up for another month, but I'll leave a cliffhanger out there and
say that there actually never was a mistrial and just let you wonder what in the world
happened then of yet another like try to scratch your head and figure out this quote justice
system.
And then if you want just another twist in the story, I'm actually have developed a pretty
close relationship with the defendant.
We talk regularly, she's actually giving one of my son's piano lessons via Zoom from prison.
So anyway, it's, you know, life takes us on on crazy journeys sometimes.
Absolutely, which I'm imagining a year ago, you know, at your daughter's wedding.
Right, right.
Yeah, like, yeah, a year ago, I was still hadn't even had my my hearing yet.
And yeah, so.
Goodness.
Well, I know this was like, like what's said to you.
You're kind of the unicorn.
This was a very specific example that there's really not a ton of other cases like this
out there.
Right.
But for somebody that's listening or just people that you hear in general for jury duty,
that generally they're going to just happen and not be that big of a deal.
But how can people be not solve this, but be aware and maybe be more of an advocate for
a more just justice system?
What can people do to be a little bit more involved?
Oh, goodness.
I think that you just have to kind of go in.
If you do have jury duty, especially if it's something, you know, like a murder type case,
go in with the right head on your shoulders and perspective that I was naive and not realizing
there was as much manipulation and power plays that go on and just being aware of that.
And for goodness sake, if you're going to look something up, don't mention it.
Don't do that.
You know, and the thing that was that was frustrating for me, like I knew that at the
end of the day, if I had found anything, I knew that I, you know, you are forced to
consider only what is presented in the trial for the case.
So and I didn't have a problem doing that.
Like, and that was one of the things that made the verdict and sentencing so difficult
for me is because really the reality is I was even struggling with second degree murder.
Like, like my heart wanted to go with manslaughter or completely acquitter.
Like that's what my heart and my emotions wanted to do.
But when I addressed the facts presented in the case, I was forced to come to the decision
of second degree murder.
And so I was like, you know, here, I was like, okay, here, I did everything I was supposed
to do.
Like I did and I believe that everybody in that jury room did come to the verdict and
sentencing based only.
But then to say my statement that was kind of a negative introduction of evidence somehow
persuaded or prejudiced them with outside information was just completely absurd, you
know.
But I guess just, you know, I realized the law is much more complex than what I originally
kind of, I mean, we all know on some degree that the law is complex.
But then when you really get down into it, it is so complex.
And I know that it's that way for a reason.
But then, you know, like I said, you have these individuals that take these rules that
were intended to bring about justice, but instead take those rules to pervert justice.
And it...
So how do you fix it?
You know, the sad answer is as long as we have prideful, arrogant, power hungry people
moving the chess pieces, we're not going to fix it.
In other words, as long as people is involved, it's going to be a broken system.
But you know, and I'm kind of like, you know, what if I had family, you know, like what
if I had discovered that this guy had all kinds of domestic abuse records?
You know, what if that had popped up?
I would have been forced to even struggle even more with the fact that that couldn't
be considered in my decision making.
And I really feel like, you know, and here was another thing that made it even harder,
you know, whenever they pick a jury, you know, there's 12 members of a jury, but they always,
at the very beginning, have two alternates in case something happens with one or two
of the jury members.
There's a couple other people that have heard all the evidence and so forth that can then,
you know, they're there for the entire trial and all deliberations, but unless you lose
a juror to, they don't actually participate in deliberations and voting.
Well, in our case, two jury members had been dismissed.
Really for misconduct, maybe reported by jury number eight, I don't know.
So I have a little bit of sarcasm that I can't get out of, but seriously, no hard feelings
against jury number eight, but I actually tried reaching out to her to let her know
I'd written a book, but no response there.
You know, can't blame her.
But I honestly do not try to, I don't try to paint her or anybody as a villain in the
book and was really worried that it would come across that way.
And I've had a lot of people say, no, it absolutely doesn't come across that way because that
wasn't my purpose.
But you know, you just realize that, yeah, that, oh, yeah.
So I kind of got lost by train thoughts.
So if there had been another alternate still available, I probably could have seen myself
recusing myself saying, you know what, I don't feel like I can, that I had all the information
needed to make a fair decision and I could have stepped out and an alternate would have
stepped in.
I didn't have that option.
The alternates had already been used up.
Now I could have still done it, but that would have resulted in a hung jury.
And you know, I didn't want that on my shoulders.
Well, obviously I had a mis-trial on my shoulders instead.
But again, I circle back to, you know, given, and the thing that, you know, given only what
was presented in the trial, second degree murder was appropriate.
But then I was left really scratching my head when a mis-trial is found.
And you know, like I said, when we very first started voting, it was nine that were voting
for guilty on first degree.
And I had no doubt in my mind that if the exact same testimony and evidence were repeated
a second time, that there was a high probability that she could walk away with first degree
murder.
And so that's why, you know, of course, the defense attorney and the defendant had no
idea about what went on in the deliberation room and how poorly her case looked from
a juror's perspective.
And I just, I was like, what in the world is happening?
You know, so.
But bizarre, but I'll say on the outside looking in, obviously it's super personal to you.
Outside looking in, if you're a kind of a law and order or just a courtroom type of person,
I imagine your book is incredible reading.
Yeah.
But you know, I've done a couple of fun podcasts that are kind of their, you know, focus on
like criminal justice and the justice system and that kind of thing where like one of them
that I did more recently, I'll do a name plug for it's Jen and Justice.
They I think are at the same space to air next week sometime.
But the host is an attorney, a defense attorney.
And so she does have a very good working knowledge of the legal system and how jury
trials work and stuff.
And so she was a real fun one to talk to.
And it was real, I'd reached out to her asking, you know, when that episode was gonna air
and she'd let me know.
Well, and I don't, I say next week, I don't know when this episode's gonna air.
That one was going to air around July 4th.
And she said, she said, but my interview with you really helped me tweak my boardire process
for jury selection with my last case.
And I, you know, and I don't remember exactly what I said.
I said, oh, did it, did it go somewhere along the lines of, you know, are you, are you somebody
that, you know, can make a decision based on cherry picked information that's been delivered
in a manipulative way and also viewed as ignorant where lots of conversations will happen around
you and you're not allowed to ask questions.
I said, was it a long interview?
She'll actually said as close as I could get.
But so yeah, I've had some fun.
And I actually had one, she was a law professor that has had her students read my book, you
know, is kind of the perspective from a juror.
And then I had a court reporter reach out to me.
She actually, you know, had emailed me and then asked if we could talk on the phone.
I called her and so if you read the book, you know, again, I don't try to villainize anybody,
but I do put court transcripts in there that just speak for themselves.
So the second judge that stepped in when the original judge recused, she was a bit of a
peach, you know.
And you know, I'd asked her, I said, have you ever had to do court reporting for a judge
like that?
She's like, oh, yeah, absolutely.
Like where you want to crawl under a table and just that the arrogance.
Yeah, because it was, it was pretty bad.
I was like, how do you sit there and just like repeat what they say like all day long?
But anyway, so that's a whole lot about that.
But what I did want to just kind of plug in there, you know, like, like you said, my story
is absolutely kind of unique and in a unicorn.
I mean, no, I have not run into anybody else that has been through that exact situation.
But like I said, I interweave stories with my kids in there and I have a fairly large
circle of foster and adoptive moms who understand that kind of parenting trauma kids and the
hard within that.
But the thing throughout the book is really just learning to rise no matter what life throws
at you because regardless of what your story is, you're going to have, if you've lived long
enough, you have walked through some absolutely devastating things, whether it's the breakup
of a marriage or a health crisis or having a business you put your heart and soul into
you fall apart or a prodigal child or, you know, I mean, so we all walked through just
absolutely horrendous things.
And I I've been so encouraged by the people who have reached out to me that have said,
you know what, reading your basically your diary every day of getting back up out of
bed and putting one foot in the other.
And then even further than that, being feeling safe to say, you know, God, I've got some
questions right now.
I've got some questions and I'm kind of I'm kind of mad.
I like, no, I'm a lot mad.
I've been safe to say that but then at the end of the day to say, you know what, even
if you know that that's what really true faith looks like is even if this all falls apart,
I still trust you.
And you know, so I think that that's kind of really a big part of my story is, you know,
what does what does real genuine faith look like?
And it's it's not, I mean, yeah, we always want to believe and hope for the best, but
the reality is that is the best doesn't always happen.
And, you know, sometimes the miracle is just keeping your your faith in the even if.
Yeah.
No, I think that's great.
And certainly sounds like even though most people listen to this and in fact, probably
none listen to this, we'll have your exact experience.
Like you said, we all face something and being able to continue on and to have that faith,
despite hard circumstances is something that we could all learn and grow from.
Absolutely.
I'm imagining people listening to this are going to want to buy your book and staying
and contact with you.
Where can they find your book at and stay in contact with you after the show?
Sure.
Well, it's it's out there on Amazon.
I've got, you know, the paperback and hardback and then, of course, the e version, the Kindle
and then I also went out on a limb and did a audio version as well for those of you know,
I think a lot of podcast listeners are probably audio people.
Full disclosure though, I self narrate it and I am by no means a professional voiceover
person and it was a huge learning curve.
You know, I'm sitting here looking at you with your headphones on my I've got those
in a box like for when podcast members, hosts want that to be used.
But I mean, I can never get the crazy things to actually recognize the right inputs and
outputs and anyway, so huge learning curve to try to record the audio book and get it
to ACX or Audible standards to upload.
But it is out there.
It was just important for me to record it in my voice since it's my story.
So it's there.
I don't necessarily have a website.
I'm on Facebook.
I'm not hard to find if you search Katrina Robertson and maybe even narrow it down to
Arkansas, you'll find me.
I've actually been starting to be asked about speaking engagement.
So I'm thinking about possibly exploring that and if that's the case, I'll eventually
put up a website and that kind of thing, but just kind of seeing where it all takes me.
But Amazon juror number 11 is the name of the book.
The subtitle is a memoir of the broken justice system and rising from the trials of life.
So you'll find it out there.
And then Facebook Katrina Robertson, you'll find me.
Okay.
All right.
Well, I'll definitely include that the Amazon link down and the show notes down below.
So definitely give that a look and yeah, I'll include Facebook on there too if you want
to stay in contact with her, but Katrina fascinating story and thank you so much for sharing with
us today.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for having me here.
I've enjoyed it.
Absolutely.
All right.
So that's my lesson and we'll catch you on the next episode.