Where "normal" murder cases took two days, this case went on for three weeks. Actually, longer because the judge had to declare a mistrial when the defendant's friend -- a psychiatrist -- took it on himself to contact all the jurors and tell them what a great guy the defendant was. Not only was there a mistrial, we had to move the trial to another city to get away from the local news media. Even so, the new jury had to be sequestered for the entire trial.
As far as my partication in the trial, in addition to doing research I wrote the judge's instructions to the jury, which I usually did. (Once he found out I had a degree in journalism he had me write all the jury instructions from then on.) While the case was in progress the Solicitor (what SC calls prosecutors) told the Judge in private(!) he knew it wasn't really a death penalty case, but he had made a campaign promise that he had to keep. So because of this asshole's ego the state ended up paying tens of thousands of dollars it wouldn't have had to had the case been tried as a regular murder trial.
BTW, after all that rigamarole the jury returned a verdict of guilty after just two hours of deliberation. Less than two hours, actually, since a portion of that time was spent eating lunch. During the second part of the trial -- the sentence -- they recommended prison in lieu of execution.
I have all kinds of reasons I'm against the death penalty, but the primary one is this -- our system of government is based on the powers granted by the governed. In other words, the government is acting as an agent to carry out our instructions (usually determined by majority rule, although recent events have put that concept into question).
Even though I'm only one person, the government is still working as my agent. This makes me the principal, and I should be willing to personally do whatever I tell the state to do -- in this case, kill another citizen. I know I can't and won't do that, so it feels wrong for me to have someone else do it in my stead.
I know a lot of the arguments against the death penalty, and I agree with most of them, but in the end the question for me is, am I willing to personally inject the poison, pull electric switch, or now, shoot someone in the heart. That's true specially when there may be a chance -- any chance at all -- that he or she may not have done the crime. I am not willing to do that, no matter how heinous the crime.
So that's my brief experience with the death penalty, FWIW.
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