Daily Times

He sat there on a chair directly across the room from me, an old man with a white beard. He was expressionless, morose, glum and despondent.

A federal judge was seated on a raised platformin black robes. She looked like royalty. A marshal stood guard at the entrance. I was one of three alternate jurors, seated next to the twelve jurors in the jury box.The attorneys were seated in the center of the room, with documents on adjacent tables.

The US government stated that the accused had deliberately hidden his income from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for five years had and illegally collected disability payments. He was charged with six counts.

The judge cited a Supreme Court decision: If a person willfully did not pay taxes, the fact that he subsequently paid them with penalties would not absolve him of his guilt. It was not for the jurors to judge the law, just to judge the actions of the defendant.

The defendant was accused of being engaged in criminal misconduct by not reporting a million dollars of income to the US government. The defendant’s attorney said that his client was in a depression triggered by the pain-relieving medications and had forgotten to fill out his tax returns

Should we find him guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt, we were not to decide what sentence should be imposed on him. That would be the decision of the judge.

We could not discuss the case with the jurors or with family members or friends while the trial was in progress. We could not consult the internet or do any research on matters related to the case. And we would abide by certain travel restrictions.

The attorneys presented their opening statements. The US attorney was young, sharply dressed, upright, and bald. He was clear and articulate. The defendant’s attorney was a short man with a bad cold. He mumbled at times.

We were told that several years ago, the defendant, who held a doctorate in psychology, had been a practicing psychologist at a major hospital when he injured his foot at a gym. The resulting pain caused him to quit work and he went on disability. In a few years, the pain dissipated and he started a private practice.

His practice yielded a few hundred thousand dollars a year. But he always asked his patients to pay by check. When he would accumulate checks that amounted to nearly $10,000, he would cash them at a bank.

None of these facts were disputed by either side. However, what lay behind the facts was at dispute.

The IRS said that the defendant had engaged in criminal misconduct by not reporting a million dollars of income to the US government.The defendant’s attorney said that his client was in a depression triggered by the pain-relieving medications and had forgotten to fill out his tax returns.

This struck me as being a clear case of fraud. I was not sure why a jury trial was needed to convict him. Was it not a waste of everyone’s time?

But as jurors we were required to listen to the facts before reaching a verdict. Of course, none of us wanted to spend much time in the courtroom. Yet for the next three weeks we sat in the juror box and listened to the recitation of facts.

One day, I ran into the defendant in the bathroom. The temptation to talk was strong. Among the jurors, I was the closest to him in age and the only one with a doctorate. There was a sense of bonding between us. But we departed in silence, looking away from each other.

The trial continued and many expert witnesses were cross-examined. Each attorney objected at various times to the questions being asked by his counterpart. Most of the objections by the US attorney were sustained. Most of the objections by the defense attorney were overruled. At some point, the trial concluded.

One of the expert witnesses brought to defend him was an academic psychiatrist. He said the defendant was afflicted with “encapsulated delusion brought on by poly-pharmacology.”I was convinced that the defendant had suffered a psychological trauma.

The defense attorney reminded us that when the IRS tracked down the defendant, they barged into his office while he was counseling a patient. The agent did not disclose to the defendant that he was carrying his gun. Nor did he tell him that the answers to the questions that were going to be put forward to him may potentially incriminate him and thus he should only respond with an attorney present in the room. The defense attorney left us with the impression that his client’s fundamental rights had been violated.

We were also informed that the defendant had not splurged on the money that he had earned by living in a fancy house, or going on vacation, or buying fancy cars. Instead, his house was in disrepair, the bathrooms were in terrible shape, and the property was infested with termites. We were also shown photographs that showed the money from his practice lay on the floors, bound up in stacks. We were also informed that his girlfriend had left him sometime during the treatment.

In his closing argument, the defense attorney faced the jurors and spoke energetically and passionately. He had finally gotten over his cold. He quoted from the Bible. I wondered if that was a smart thing to do in California. This was not the Deep South.

Then he asked rhetorically whether the IRS had ever persecuted anyone who was involved in big Wall Street frauds. No, he said. He asked why they were now trying to throw this 70-year old man under the bus. Perhaps it was easier to put him behind bars then those well-connected rich suspects, he opined.

The judge informed the twelve jurors that they had to find the defendant guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt. The jury went into deliberations. I went home.

My cell phone rang at 6 PM. It was court’s clerk who had been escorting us in and out of the courtroom as we took our break. Her voice was flat: “The defendant has been found guilty on all six counts. You are now excused from jury duty and can discuss the case.”

I was shattered. Being guilty on each of six counts meant that the 70-year old man might end up spending 30 years in jail, even though he had paid back the taxes he owed along with a penalty.

And then a second thought occurred to me. Perhaps it was not just the defendant who had been on trial. In finding the defendant to be guilty as charged, the jurors were perhaps also rendering a verdict on the profession of psychiatry.

The author can be reached at ahmadfaruqui@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, July 3^rd 2018.