One curious criminal case
- Hey, Adam. I haven't seen you for ages! I even thought that you moved somewhere.
- Oh, no! I was summoned to be a juror on a trial. I thought it would be an easy case, nothing too serious. But it turned out to be quite bizarre.
- You're kidding me! A juror? You are the first juror that I know. Do you have to keep everything in secret?
- No, the case is over, it's been all over the news these days.
- I'm not much of a news junkie. Can you tell me about it? Was it a murder or something?
- Andriy, you watch far too much detective drama. It was a petty crime. Negligence to be exact.
- Oh, that! So no forensic scientists and such?
- Do you want me to tell you? Or would you rather make it all up?
- Sorry, go on.
- The police received an anonymous call about a robbery. The officers didn't take it too serious for the caller said that thieves were in the zoo.
- What would you steal in the zoo? A penguin?
- I guess the police were quite skeptical too but when they arrived to the zoo, they basically caught two criminals red-handed. One of them was a well-dressed middle-aged man. The other one – a fifteen-year-old boy. They were standing next to a huge graffiti, the boy was holding a can of spray paint.
- I never thought that you could get arrested for a graffiti.
- Well, it is vandalism after all.
- But one can't be sentenced to prison for graffiti, right?
- Well, the boy confessed, his fingerprints were all over the place, and got a suspended sentence and around 100 hours of community service since it was his first offence. But that's not the case I was working on. The middle-aged man, who turned out to be the vet from this zoo, sued the police department. The boy tried to spray the police officer with paint but the policeman ducked and the paint got all over an elephant. So the vet claimed that the elephant was the victim while he himself was a witness of the policeman's negligence. He said that he couldn't let the offender get away with it just because the elephant couldn't accuse anybody, so he decided to do it on the elephant's behalf. Moreover, he demanded that the trial be moved to the zoo, since the victim couldn't come to the court.
- I bet the judge wasn't happy.
- Would you be? Anyway, next morning we all went to the zoo to carefully listen to all the testimonies and look at the evidence – aka the elephant. The elephant was quite pink and happy. The zookeeper said she was eating much better than before and there was no reason to suspect she had got any kind of psychological trauma.
- Adam, come on! You're making it all up!
- Am I? There's the picture of Pinky and me.
- Pinky?
- The elephant. She had been brought to the zoo the day before the assault and still didn't have a name.
- Ok, I believe you. Anyway, did you find the policeman guilty?
- Of course not. He was fully acquitted of all the charges. And the vet was fined for fraud. Pinky turned out to be insured for $ 1 million and if anything happened to her, the insurance company would have to pay the money. That's why the vet needed that lawsuit.
- Adam, you know that this is the craziest trial I've ever heard of.
- I know. I wouldn't have believed it myself if it hadn't happened to me.
Vocabulary:
- juror – one of 12 ordinary people who listen to the details of a case in court and decide whether someone is guilty or not
- trial – a legal process in which a judge and often a jury in a court of law examine information to decide whether someone is guilty of a crime
- murder – the crime of deliberately killing someone
- petty crime – a crime that is not serious, for example stealing things that are not very valuable
- negligence – failure to take enough care over something that you are responsible for
- forensic scientists – a person whose job is to use scientific methods for finding out about a crime
- robbery – the crime of stealing money or things from a bank, shop etc, especially using violence
- thief – someone who steals things from another person or place
- criminal – someone who is involved in illegal activities or has been proved guilty of a crime
- to catch someone red-handed – to catch someone at the moment when they are doing something wrong
- graffiti – rude, humorous, or political writing and pictures on the walls of buildings, trains
- be arrested – to be taken to a police station because the police think one has done something illegal
- vandalism – he crime of deliberately damaging things, especially public property
- to be sentenced – to be given a punishment for being guilty of a crime
- prison – a building where people are kept as a punishment for a crime
- to confess (to) – to admit, especially to the police, that you have done something wrong or illegal
- fingerprints – marks made by the pattern of lines at the end of a person's fingers, which are used by the police to find out who has committed a crime
- suspended sentence – a punishment given by a court in which a criminal is told they will be sent to prison if they do anything else illegal within the time mentioned
- community service – work that is not paid that someone does to help other people, sometimes as punishment for a crime
- offence – an illegal action or a crime
- victim – someone who has been attacked, robbed, or murdered
- witness – someone who sees a crime or an accident and can describe what happened
- offender – someone who is guilty of a crime
- to get away with it – to not be caught or punished when you have done something wrong
- to accuse – to say that you believe someone is guilty of a crime or of doing something bad
- court – the place where a trial is held, or the people there, especially the judge and the jury who examine the evidence and decide whether someone is guilty or not guilty
- judge – the official in control of a court who decides how criminals should be punished
- testimony – a formal statement saying that something is true, especially one a witness makes in a court of law
- evidence – information that is given in a court of law in order to prove that someone is guilty or not guilty
- to suspect – to think that something is probably true, especially something bad
- guilty – having done something that is a crime
- to be acquitted – to be given a decision in a court of law that someone is not guilty of a crime
- charges – an official statement made by the police saying that they believe someone may be guilty of a crime
- to fine – to make someone pay money as a punishment
- fraud – the crime of deceiving people in order to gain something such as money or goods
- to be insured – to have an arrangement with a company in which you pay them money, especially regularly, and they pay the costs if something bad happens, for example if you become ill or your car is damaged
- lawsuit – a problem or complaint that a person or organization brings to a court of law to be settled
