This case is about responsibility. Responsibility to oneself and responsibility to one’s community, but equally about the responsibilities of community members to others. People like me.

Two Thursdays ago, the People asked a seemingly innocuous question, phrased as an assumption of fact. It was perhaps a small liberty to take, possibly small enough to pass by the eyes of a fair-minded judge. Nonetheless, it was a liberty the People had no more business taking than I the keys to someone else’s car.

I would here take a moment to point out that such was the second time in a twenty-four-hour period in which the People had taken a certain liberty with respect to my family. In my view, none of these things has gone unnoticed by the party most ultimately responsible for serving justice in these proceedings.

The specific words the district attorney used were: we don’t even know why he did it.

Let’s look at the statement for a moment. Is it honest?

Take a look at the case, if you will. Has anyone even once openly and sincerely asked the question why? The question wasn’t even asked on the night in question. Not when the police or the ambulance came, not in the emergency room, and not once during the whole thirty days the defendant spent in an inpatient facility. Because everyone knew even then.

At this point, it’s disingenuous to ask why, isn’t it? Isn’t it dishonest to imply we don’t have the answer — considering that we’ve had it all along? Isn’t it dishonest to suggest “if we only knew why he did it, we might be…