On trial

Lately I have been wearing a trail between my office and the courthouse. I have been covering a murder trial there for the past two weeks. I have never sat through a trial all the way through, so it's fascinating to watch the process. Sometimes it's dramatic, with witnesses sobbing and tension between the attorneys. Other times, its tedious, with an attorney asking the same questions over and over about some minute detail.

Prosecutor: "You said were were standing next to the trailer the whole time you were shooting"

Defendant: "Yes."

Prosecutor: "So you shot the gun, and you didn't take any steps forward?"

Defendant: "No."

Prosecutor: "After you shot the gun, did you move at all?"

Imagine eight hours of that.

It's the latest in what has made work all-consuming in the past couple weeks.

I also recently had a project run on unsolved homicides in the two counties we cover. I worked on that for six months, and had six stories run — one main story about working cold cases, four about specific cases and one with a sample of other cases.

Anyway, one more week of this trial, and hopefully things will slow down.

Lesson Learned: Don't mess with the judge.