Sunday, November 30, 1997
Reporter's Notebook
RICHARD HORN, senior staff writer -- It was a swift, strange
day of justice for jurors in a Taylor County courtroom last week,
where they engaged in the shortest criminal jury trial in memory.
Beginning at 9 a.m. Monday, jurors endured the selection process,
listened to evidence, heard attorney arguments, deliberated and
announced their verdict, all within the span of about four-and-a-half
hours. They even had time to grab a lunch break.
By 2:30 p.m., James Michael Baltier was found not guilty of
forging a $56 check. The panel heard from a handful of witnesses,
including a former roommate who also accused the defendant of
running up a $300-plus phone bill, mostly for 1-900 phone sex.
Baltier took the stand and denied it all. There also was confusion
over the date a witness gave a police statement.
"The jury just didn't believe the witnesses' stories,"
Assistant District Attorney Curtis Tomme said.
Adding to the oddity: Baltier is in prison, serving a six-year
sentence for aggravated assault out of Travis County. Had he been
convicted of the forgery, a state jail felony, he would have been
granted mandatory probation.
"There's nothing that could have happened to him in the
context of this forgery case that would have any effect on him,"
defense attorney Jeff Johnson said. "Why the decision was
made to bring him back I don't know. It was just one of those
head-scratchers."
The state reportedly had tried to work out a plea bargain or
an arrangement with Baltier's attorney in the assault case, but
the efforts fail. In such instances, the policy is to prosecute
the charges, Tomme said.
At least one juror wondered why anyone bothered.
"I never did figure out why I was there," the juror
said. "It just cost the county money. I made seven bucks
out of it but missed most of a day's work. Funny world."
As it turned out, those miniscule fees for the 12 jurors alone
amounted to nearly double the $56 cost of the check.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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