A legal odyssey in three acts: Service, Struggle, Acquittal

In 1994, at age 22, I served two weeks on a criminal jury in Will County, Illinois. Nine years later, on the eve of my 31st birthday in 2003, I stood in that same courthouse as a defendant. What followed was a bench conviction, an appeal that reversed and remanded the case in 2006, and finally, a swift jury acquittal after approximately forty-five minutes of deliberation later