Today I heard CNN trial reporter, Jean Casares claim that murder defendant Brandon Craig was leading a reformed life before he was arrested: he had a wife and child and was a licensed helicopter pilot instructor—was also the son of a prominent business man, as if that made him special. But according to Mountain View Telegraph reporter T. J. Wilham, Craig was living “a double life” and was an Army deserter. Who should we believe?

The truth of the defendant’s past matters little to the jury in a murder trial. Believe me. It’s the last thing you think about in deliberations.

I suppose this is part of a defense strategy to demonize the pathetic young woman touted as the “star witness” against him and to paint the defendant as a wrongly accused, upstanding member of the community. If I were a defense attorney, that’s what I’d be doing, too, I imagine. But as I have said repeatedly, I am not a lawyer—just a writer of mysteries and a former juror (who frankly fears for the future of the jury system).

I feel that CNN is catering to the defense in this trial—perhaps they like the defense attorney. And I’m convinced that lawyers think jurors ignore a judge’s warnings against listening to news about a case. I know it happens—but not all the time, and not all jurors “behave badly.”

I’m more and more convinced that legal commentators despise the jury system and have great contempt for jurors. Please don’t think I’m singling out Ms. Casares, or even implying that she’s one of these sorts of commentators. I’ve always found her presentations to be judicious. All I know is what I heard her say today about Craig’s reformed character—and all I know about Craig comes from CNN and other media, none of which I’m certain are accurate in their reporting. Let me say it again: I know absolutely nothing about this case except what I read and hear in the media.

I’d like to say something, though, about Craig’s “former girlfriend,” a young woman I watched testify a bit today. She is a victim in this crime—whether she’s telling the truth or lying. And the CNN commentators made it very clear that she could be lying, in fact, that all the prosecution’s witnesses could be lying.

Apparently, when she was a 15-year-old sophomore in high school, her father kicked her out of the house so he could move his own girlfriend into it. He “helped” his young daughter pay for an apartment of her own. (In most states, this would be child abandonment and a crime.) She became heavily involved in dealing drugs, so much so that she testified she could lend Brandon Craig $500’s worth of cocaine to sell. Afterwards, she claims, she watched him gun down three high-school classmates, allegedly over unpaid drug debts. Then Craig kept a tight watch over her so she wouldn’t go to the police with what she knew. Subsequently, this young woman had her own legal troubles (what a surprise!).

What kind of a nation have we become, where a father can abandon a teenage girl and no one does a thing about it? Is it really possible that no teachers or school officials knew she was living on her own? What kind of life must this child have been leading to be able to obtain such quantities of drugs that she could supply several dealers (as she claimed on the stand)? How could her drug use have gone completely unnoticed in a small-town high school?

The jurors in the Brandon Craig trial are being asked to evaluate this young woman’s credibility (she’s in her early twenties now). Some jurors in this case may not believe her. Some may. But that’s why the jury is called the “finders of fact.” Even so, some of her story could have been independently corroborated, if anyone had bothered (such as the police looking into the truth of her story about why she didn’t live at home when in high school and how she supported herself).

The way the cops investigate crimes and prosecutors present them to juries is a mystery to me.