Trials and Tribulations

Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes relates to Law and Justice through the eyes of Judge Alex Cormier first in this next section. She is fatigued by the trivial case she is trying and wonders aloud to the police prosecutor why "the taxpayers of New Hampshire (are) shelling out money for a case like this to be tried." I completely agree with Cormier's attitude towards this particular situation and will share with you the circumstances of the afore mentioned case:

"The two men standing in front of Alex's bench shared a duplex, but hated each other. Arliss Undergroot was a Sheetrock installer with tattoes up and down both arms, a shaved head, and enough piercings in his head to have set off the metal detectors at the courthouse. Rodney Eakes was a vegan bank teller with a prized record collection of original cast recordings fro Broadway shows. Arliss lived downstairs, Rodney lived upstairs. A few months back, Rodney had brought home a bale of hay, planning to use it for mulching his organic garden, but he never got around to it and the hay bale remained on Arliss's proch. Arliss asked Rodney to get rid of the hay, but Rodney hadn't moved fast enough. So one night, Arliss and his girlfriend cut the twine and spread the hay out over the front lawn."

Rodney called the police and they had actually arrested Arliss on the grounds of criminal mischief: legalspeak for destroying a bale of hay. The police prosecutor had already proved that Arliss had taken the bale of hay and spread it over the lawn, so the burden of proof was fulfilled. However, Cormier pities Arliss's situation: if convicted he would have a criminal record. So she instead asks the prosecutor how much the victim paid for the bale of hay. Ultimately, Arliss payed for the four dollar bale of hay and a fifteen-minute recess was called.

The rest of this section of reading focuses around Josie struggling with her grief as she returns to school, Cormier's incessant worrying about Josie when she's at school, and a flash back to the year before the shooting when Josie and Peter got along as coworkers in an office supply store, not law and justice. Better luck next time.

Details, Details.

Criminal procedure law attempts to find balance between the individual’s rights protected by the Due Process model and the justice that is served by the Crime Control model. The reality of this idealistic and impossible goal all comes down to the details of definitions and specific instances, as Chapter Six: Criminal Procedure clearly explains.

Laws for criminal procedure are founded upon the Bill of Rights, state constitutions, federal and state statutes, and the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 8^th, and 14^th Amendments and have been haphazardly established by the Supreme Court on a case-by-case basis.

The 4^th Amendment in particular led to the creation of the warrant and reasonableness clauses, which state that all warrants must be based on “probable cause” and must specifically define the person or place to be searched. Probable cause exists when “the facts and circumstances within the officers’ knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been committed” (Brinegar v. United States 1949). The 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, is also responsible for the "knock and announce" policy in the case of an arrest or search, with the exception of an immediate threat of serious harm to the officers or others (Tennessee v. Garner 1985).

Nineteen Minutes: Law and Justice in a Post-Columbine Culture

"If we don't change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going." --Chinese Proverb

Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes is a story of the complexities unveiled by the events surrounding a school shooting. The novel is composed in time frames in accordance to the shooting, beginning with the day of the event, and then flashing back seventeen years, then flying forward to a few hours after the shooting, and so on. These time sequences are told from the points of view of up to six different characters, each revealing the multifaceted parameters of intent, revenge, justice, and guilt through their own thoughts and actions, and the actions of those around them.

The story begins on March 6, 2007 with Josie Cormier getting ready for school. Josie is the angst ridden teenage daughter of Superior Court Judge Alex Cormier, who is disillusioned with her pseudo-reality and has therefore been inconspicuously stealing sleeping pills from her mother for months, just so that she can down them in a lethal dose of alcohol when her "friends" discover how different and unhappy she really is. Josie's character deals mostly with the emotional aspects of the shooting and its aftermath, like missing her murdered boyfriend to the point of debilitation and playing six degrees with the wounded, and not so much with justice or law.

Justice is portrayed in this story in many characters, however, including Alex Cormier, Josie's mother. She is the youngest and reportedly fairest Superior Court Judge in Grafton County, New Hampshire, and while she seems completely oblivious to Josie's dark musings, she does care for her daughter dearly. Unfortunately, her talents lie with the repeat offenders that wander through her courtroom, not making an emotional connection with her daughter.

Judge Cormier's friend and OB GYN, Lacy Houghton, is another character of justice in Nineteen Minutes. Lacy delivered Josie when Alex was still a lawyer, struggling to understand how she would mother a child when she could not even keep a house plant alive. Lacy is also the mother of Josie's childhood friend, Peter Houghton, who, through a long series of unfortunate events becomes the school shooter.

Before Peter Houghton was an outcast, he was expected to follow in his older brother Joey's shoes as a great high school athlete. Sadly, Joey's tragic death during his senior year only alienated Peter further. Until one day even his best friend Josie left him for the "in crowd" on a promise that she would make them stop picking on him. The bullying did not stop for Peter, however, and he became a time bomb.

The story opens with Peter's suicide note, but he was apprehended before he killed himself so the story continues on with the preparation for his trial. Lacy tries to buy milk at the store, and ultimately cannot because she sees a change tin for the victims of the shooting and listens to the cashier's blind accusations of, "It makes you wonder about the parents, you know?" Lacy's justice is far different from that of the victim's parents, but Lacy stays silent. She wants everyone to understand that she lost her child, her Peter, too--just a long time before. She feels that she is blamed for not keeping a closer eye on Peter, for not knowing what he planned to do. After Joey died, Lacy found heroin in his room, so her theory was that if she did not want to find anything she did not want to see, then she would not pry.

Detective Patrick Ducharme was the first officer in the high school during the shooting, and was the officer to apprehend Peter. The Detective's character deals with the aftermath of crime and procedural law. He is on his way to the crime lab to have some evidentiary cocaine processed when he heres the code 1000. Patrick was the one to find Josie, scratched, but otherwise unharmed, and remove her from the wreckage with noticing her dead boyfriend lying next to her. Detective Ducharme is the character who plays Peter's video game simulation of nerds creating weapons and killing all the jocks, bullies, and popular kids, which results in a massacre of a SWAT team. He also investigates the suicide of a victim's mother in a local gun shop could be argued as an indirect result of Peter's shootings, but would not likely hold up in court.

Peter spends most of his time in detention fighting the counsel of his Defense Attorney, Jordan. Jordan saves Peter from a probable cause hearing that would put his family under the microscope and most likely discover his mens rea. Apparently, Jordan has discovered an untested yet valid defense, but the reader is unaware of the details of this defense at this point.