GUILT AND INNOCENCE … after reading what I had to say last week about the brutal beating of Mikey Partida in our town several months ago, a friend of mine suggested he certainly wouldn’t want me on the jury if he were the defendant … truth be known, I wouldn’t want me on the jury either …

While I recognize and embrace the concept of “innocent until proven guilty,” many of us in town are simply too familiar with this case to be truly impartial … and no matter how many warnings jurors are given to consider only the evidence presented, it’s nearly impossible to unring the bell if you know of other evidence that has not been presented for one reason or another …

For instance, I’ve read at least half a dozen times that the defendant is facing similarly serious charges from a completely unrelated case in Dixon … falsely accused once? … perhaps … falsely accused twice? … not likely … I could lie and say that my knowledge of the Dixon case has absolutely no bearing on my feelings about guilt or innocence in the Davis case, but it would be just that — a lie …

Then again, he could be innocent of one and guilty of the other, but my brain tells me that when you’re facing significant charges in two separate jurisdictions, I’m going to cross the street and keep my head down if I see you coming my way …

I’ve also been infuriated by the defense tactics so far, basically saying the defendant didn’t do it, then arguing that the hateful words he used (apparently while not committing the crime) weren’t really hateful because he comes from a good and tolerant family … and then, in a clear act of desperation, the defense spent a fair bit of money to fly in a linguistic expert from Utah to tell the court something every first-grader knows, namely that a single word can take on different meanings depending on the context in which it is used …

Well, this particular offensive word was allegedly used in the context of a beating, so I think we can pretty much figure out for ourselves what it meant on the night in question … at the very least, it was not a term of endearment … they may as well have put Bill Clinton on the stand to tell us what the definition of “is” is …

CHANGE OF VENUE? … I haven’t heard any talk so far of moving the trial to a locale where it has received little or no publicity, but I’m sure that’s the next page in the defense playbook … it would be hard to argue that this case has not generated a considerable amount of pretrial publicity, nearly all of it pointing the finger of guilt squarely at the defendant charged with this crime …

Changes of venue, of course, are a complete pain for all parties involved, but sometimes they’re a necessity to ensure a fair trial … in Davis, if you shopped at the Food Co-op, you knew Mikey Partida, and obviously, there are a million other ways you might have known him, but here’s guessing your interactions were invariably positive … that’s certainly the picture that has emerged about the life he has led so far …

Those of us who grew up here recognize a number of familiar names surrounding the case, including those of several witnesses who will no doubt testify … that, too, affects one’s perception of guilt or innocence … for me, I know my eyes welled up with spontaneous tears — the kind that bypass the brain — when I saw Mikey walk up to receive Holy Communion on Easter Sunday, just three weeks to the day from the night he was so savagely beaten … at least he hasn’t lost his faith in God, I thought …

I also attended the rally in Central Park designed to show love and support for Mikey … none of these things, of course, bears on the guilt or innocence of the young man charged with this horrific crime, but they certainly don’t help his cause … now, if I were on the jury and was presented with incontrovertible evidence that the defendant was in Kalamazoo, Mich., on the night of the crime, I’d have to reconsider and eventually discard my preconceived notions about his guilt, but given the defense’s tactics so far, I don’t expect that to happen …

If the defense can find 12 people in Yolo County who have never heard of this case, fine … but they would have to have been living in a cave to say that honestly …

— Reach Bob Dunning at [email protected]

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