And the verdict is...

guilty on all 9 counts. The charges? Two counts of theft and 7 counts of false statement on a Medicaid claim.

As I mentioned in my previous entry I was an alternate juror which means I heard/saw the whole case presented but did not participate in the deliberations.

The story of this case begins in 1999. There was an 18-year-old girl (P) who up to this point had had a pretty rough childhood. Her parents were dead. We don’t get to know the details of that chlidhood or her parents’ demise, but we know that she grew up in St. Louis and was sent out to Seattle to stay with one of her many aunties (Aunt A) and her husband (her uncle). This young girl had some mental problems and the family at this time did not know exactly the nature of those problems.

The arrangement to stay with her Aunt A did not work out and the uncle called another of P’s aunts in Seattle (Aunt B) to say that he was putting P on a bus back to St. Louis. Aunt B told him No, do not put P on that bus – she will get lost on the way back to St. Louis! She was afraid for her niece that she would not be able to find the right bus to get on for transfers and could get lost along the way. Aunt B took in P and began to take care of her.

Within the first year Aunt B realized that P had some mental issues that she did not understand and so she took P to a doctor. It was discovered that P had a developmental disability. She had Downs Syndrome. Auntie B applied for some assistance to take care of P. She got SSI (Social Security) payments for P. Even though P was an adult, Aunt B applied to be and was named representative payee for P. That meant the checks for P would come in Aunt B’s name and she was to use those checks on things for her niece’s benefit.

Aunt B also applied to a special Medicaid Personal Care program as a paid caregiver to P. Aunt B was allotted a certain number of hours per month she could be paid for services rendered for P. This included things like personal hygiene, shopping, cooking, laundry, etc.

After a few years P decided she wanted to be more independent and she felt she could make it on her own. She no longer wanted to live at home with Aunt B. She got a part-time job at Safeway. She started staying at friends’ homes more and more. Eventually she totally moved out of Aunt B’s home and was exclusively living with friends.

You might guess what happened. Aunt B continued to collect both the Social Security and Medicaid checks. P wanted to get her own apartment and live completely independently but she needed more money than she made at Safeway. She started asking for her SSI checks and was told that the checks had been returned. But some checking with the Social Securty Administration showed that the checks had not been returned and had indeed been cashed.

There was a period of 7-9 months when Aunt B continued to claim money from Medicaid for caring for P and she continued to cash the SSI checks. It’s easy to see how this happened. Aunt B was probably desperate for money, and this money was already coming in. But that doesn’t make it right or legal. Sometimes good people do bad things.

The two counts of theft were for the money taken from Medicaid (the state) and Social Security (federal government). The 7 counts of misstatements were for each month that Aunt B. placed a call to an automated voice mail system claiming she cared for P at the full allowed amount when P was no longer residing with her.

It was clear that P did not want to testify against her Aunt B – she loves her very much. She was rather emotional and teary at times. But she got on the stand and she told the truth.

P is now living independently. She was awarded assistance with housing and backpay for her SSI quickly after they figured out what was going on. The last question P was asked when she testified was how she likes living independently. Her answer was a huge smile and the words “I LOVE it!”

I am told that sentencing will be done by the judge in a few weeks. Hopefully this will bring closure to this family who had become divided over this matter.

Adventures in Jury Duty

I reported for jury duty on Wednesday, March 4 expecting to serve for 2 days and be excused. But I was selected to sit on a jury right away! The estimate for length of trial was that we could be there through the 24th of March. Thankfully, they overestimated.

The hardest thing was rescheduling all my responsibilities for the three-week period. But aside from that, it was really a good experience. I think serving on a jury is always interesting. You get to see how the process of justice works, and you always learn a lot. And you get to meet some great people.

In the case of my jury, there were 14 of us selected. We were told that after we saw the whole trial and before deliberations began they would select two of us to be alternates. The alternates would leave and the other 12 people would deliberate and decide on the verdict. If one of the 12 got sick or became unable to serve, then an alternate would be called back and deliberations would begin again.

Interestingly, out of the 14 of us, only one was male. We spent all our breaks together during the trial, so you can just image a room full of women with lots of talk about knitting and pets and care-giving, etc. Every one of us (including the male who was a great sport about being the only man) got along great. By the third day of trial people were teasing that wouldn’t it be fun to have a potluck or bring in platters of goodies and food to the jury room? And maybe they could share some with the judge! Pretty funny.

In fact we were having SO much fun we had to ask the bailiff how much they could hear in the courtroom what was going on in the jury room. The jury room is just on the other side of the wall from the back of the courtroom, you see. Was our loud boisterous laughter disturbing anything? The bailiff (also a woman) told us that she only heard us because she was standing right in front of our door. And if we could be heard with the door closed it only meant the others in the courtroom would be jealous. It seemed like every time the bailiff opened our door to ask us to line up and return to the court room there was a roll of laughter that escaped the door before we could quiet ourselves. I remember the bailiff telling us “okay, you are having entirely too much fun in here, it’s time to go back to work!” She was smiling when she said that.

The case itself was interesting overall. Like with any trial though there were some hours of testimony that were verrry dry and we were glad for our breaks. As I mentioned above, the length of trial length was overestimated. At the end of the day on Tuesday the 10th both sides had finished presenting witnesses. We came back on Wednesday morning and were given jury instructions and then heard closing arguments. Then the clerk pulled two names out of an envelope to see who would be the alternate jurors. And I was chosen to be the second alternate! So they sent me home. The other alternate juror was the male juror. I traded email addresses with a couple people before leaving so I could find out how everything came out.

After over a week of being told I could not talk about this case until deliberations, I was now excluded from deliberations and still could not talk about it. I was “on hold” until the conclusion of deliberations because they might need me back. Late Thursday the bailiff called me to tell me the verdict and that I was now free to talk about the case.

Overall it was a good experience. I was a little saddened to be sent home “just when it was getting good” but I trusted my fellow jurors to render a fair verdict, and they did. I will write a separate entry to tell about the case.