Court Report - JL&E

Word Count: 1100

It was quiet in the courtroom on Tuesday September 17th as 32-year-old Jack Weekley waited for his trial to begin. He had been charged with Operating While Intoxicated following a crash that happened in Waterloo last May, and he plead not guilty. After Judge Patrick Wegman arrived and the jury entered the room, the session began.

Prosecutor Molly Edwards came forward to tell the jury what happened on the night of May 25th. On this night, Waterloo Police were dispatched to the scene of an accident where they discovered that a Cadillac had left the road, driven across a grassy lot, and struck a van parked on an intersecting street. She then explained that at the scene, the police came upon a man who, “was not wearing a shirt, had blood on him, and they could smell alcohol from him.”

Immediately, the cops asked the man (Jack Weekley) if he had been driving the Cadillac, which he denied. Both vehicles were not occupied when police reached the scene, and the intoxicated Weekley told officers, “Well I’m drunk so I’m not saying anything.”

With no one else at the scene to verify who had been driving the vehicle, and at the time lacking the evidence needed to arrest him for OWI, the police decided to arrest Weekley for Public Intoxication. Upon searching Weekley during his arrest, the cops found the keys to the Cadillac in his jeans pocket.

After investigating the crash, police found blood on the left driver’s side armrest, which was later found to match the blood from Weekley’s cut on his left arm. He was the only person on scene with any injuries.

Edwards brought the cops from that night as witnesses for the trial. She asked every possible question to fact check them in front of the jury. The first witness, Officer John Koontz, was training another officer that night. Koontz indentified Weekley in court as the drunk man who had been at the scene of the crash. He verified everything that Edwards said about the events of the crash, and his body cam footage was shown to the jury which was also accurate with what was stated.

After this, Defense Attorney Konrad Kamizelich cross examined Kootnz. Kamizelich brought to attention that the crash had been relayed to dispatch through OnStar in the Cadillac. He revealed that no one knew for a fact if OnStar spoke to anyone in the vehicle and that the officers never checked with them either.

Kamizelich went on to ask about who was the owner of the vehicle and verified that Weekley was not that person. He also verified that on that night the police did not attempt to contact the owner of the vehicle and did not look for security cameras in the surrounding area that could have had footage of the crash.

The second witness, Officer Marcus Harrington, was then called to the stand. He verified that he was with Koontz at the time as he was the officer in training. Harrington was the officer responsible for creating a diagram of the crash, which was shown to the jury. Edwards began to ask Harrignton about the driving conditions that night, and showed that there were no conditions that would have led to a higher risk of crashing.

Harrington also spoke to Weekley that night and he said, “He told me and another officer he was not driving the Cadillac,” but also explained that Weekley, “stumbled multiple times, was very imbalanced, and said he’d been drinking too much.”

Edwards then began to ask Harrington about who the owner of the car was. It was revealed that Shae Sheppard was the owner of the Cadillac. The address registered with the vehicle was the same address on Weekley’s driver’s license. The prosecution also showed Harrington’s body cam footage, which confirmed that Weekley was bleeding on his left arm.

During the cross examination, Kamizelich revealed that Harrington did not try to get in contact with Shepard until the week of the trial, and they did not ask her about her whereabouts on May 25th. He also pushed Harrington to admit that Shepard could not be certainly placed on or off scene at the time of the crash.

After an hour of trial, Judge Wegman announced a recess and I left the courtroom. After speaking with the clerks outside the courtroom, I discovered that this was a case that likely wouldn’t be sentenced until the next day. I called later on and found out that Weekley had been found guilty of OWI.

I am not surprised at all at this verdict, as it is the one I was leaning towards heavily as I watched the trial unfold. Upon searching Weekley on Iowa Courts Online, I found a lengthy history of charges, so it seems even more fitting that he would be found guilty.

Despite all the defense did to make it seem like the police officers failed to investigate properly, I think they did a great job. If I were in their shoes, I would have done the same thing. From the body cam footage and how they explained the crash site, it seems it was obvious that Weekley had been the driver of the Cadillac. I almost find it funny that he tried to deny it at all.

This was my first time witnessing a real cross-examination, and I have to say it was pretty tense. Having someone basically force you to say that you’re wrong and the reasons why in front of a jury would be really hard. This is especially true if you’re in the position that these cops were in where they had done the best job possible with the situation at hand and had made the correct judgement about Weekley, but then had everything they did wrong in the investigation pointed out.

Sitting in on a trial was a great learning experience for me, and very exciting. It made me more interested in law than I ever have been previously, and it was fun to see my own real-life episode of “Law and Order.” This will be great experience in the future if I become a reporter at a newspaper that wants me to go to a trial and write a story about it.

While the particular trial that I saw might not be extremely newsworthy, I can see how if it were a high-profile person or a more serious case that it would be important to go to the trial as a journalist to get the story.