Opinion ID: 177231
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: How the Trials Unfolded. The bail-jumping trial

Text: Thanks to some pretrial stipulations, the only issue at play during the two-day bail-jumping trial was whether Kinsella had willfully failed to appear at the re-arraignmentand there was enough for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he had. Kinsella's repeated open-court pledges to return for scheduled proceedings practically leapt from the pages of the bail-hearing transcripts, which the lawyers had stipulated into evidence. The jury also heard from PSO Maddox, who testified about discussing the release conditions with Kinsella, handing him a card with a toll-free number to use in checking in with probation, and hearing nothing from him leading up to and following his no-show at the scheduled re-arraignment. Attorney Erickson testified about notifying Kinsella of the date and time of the re-arraignment, reminding him he had to be there, giving him a heads-up on the arrest warrant and the failure-to-appear charge after his no-show, and hearing how he had made no effort to cross the U.S. border to make the re-arraignment and was bent on fighting extradition. Cinching matters, a deputy U.S. Marshal testified about how the Mounties hauled a hand-cuffed Kinsella back to the United States two years after he had skipped the re-arraignment. Ultimately, though, Kinsella does not contest the sufficiency of the evidence against him. Instead he attacks the prosecutor's closing argument, which, he says, represented an improper appeal to the jurors' emotions. After Judge Woodcock instructed the jury that the government had the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that closing arguments are not evidence, the prosecutor began his summation with this statement: This case is important because we all can appreciate the need for defendants who are charged with crimes to appear in court. Our courts have a very important function in the United States, and they cannot carry out their responsibilities if defendants in criminal cases are allowed to ignore the promises that they make to judges, to disobey court orders, and to fail to appear in violation of the law. Defense counsel did not object. Building to a crescendo, the prosecutor later stressed that a person who shows up to a hearing two hours or even two days late may not be willful, but a person who fails to call his PSO, who fails to self-surrender, who fights extradition and then only returns in cuffs two-plus years after his no-show has willfully failed to appear in court. The jury must have agreedit found Kinsella guilty after deliberating for about 38 minutes.