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And so the trial is over.

A young man with a common-law wife and young daughter was found next to his car in the middle of an intersection at 2 a.m., about ten miles from my home, so drunk he could no longer stand, with just under 200 grams of pure cocaine – suitable for making several hundred vials of crack cocaine, according to expert witness – in his pocket. He admitted he was being paid $300 to deliver the drugs, freshly cut from a kilo brick, to the next level distributor in his own neighborhood. The street value could approach $150,000.

That he had to stop in an intersection to vomit from a hard night of drinking at his source's house, and was unable to drag himself back into the car to complete his mission, was the only reason he was discovered and arrested.

He freely admitted all of this on the stand, pled guilty to a 1^st degree felony with the same penalty range as murder or aggravated sexual assault, expressed no apparent remorse, and displayed no evidence he had attempted to change his lifestyle – he still drinks and admits he "may have a problem", is still associated with “friends” who are part of the drug culture, and had refused to assist the district attorney in identifying either his drug source or destination prior to trial.

He and his lawyer asked for probation because it was his first offense, and he is a “family man”. The assistant district attorney asked that, given the huge quantity of pure cocaine he was attempting to spread in our town, we consider a minimum of 15 years in the penitentiary.

As the only juror with trial experience, I was elected foreman by acclamation, and we deliberated for seven hours. To my astonishment, ten of the twelve jurors were fine with probation. Only two would consider a 15 year sentence appropriate. When I suggested a minimum 5 year sentence as a compromise – with good behavior, he could be back on the streets in only 15 months – three of the twelve refused to even consider it.

One other juror held out for prison, but I sensed – and I could have read her wrong – that if I capitulated, so would she. During a 20 minute break, I wrestled and prayed over whether to allow a mistrial or to allow probation and hope that perhaps he would change the course of his life, become the good citizen the other jurors insisted he was, leave the drug trade and follow the straight and narrow.

Twenty long minutes. And then a mistrial.

In the end, I was simply unable to face my wife, my children, my students and my God with the knowledge that I had let a man capable of bringing cocaine into our neighborhood simply walk out the door. But even more, I couldn't knowingly let this man return to being a “role model” to a young daughter – not this man, a man who would bring a baseball-sized bag filled with highly concentrated poison within spitting distance of her home for penny ante greed, 20 pieces of silver to endanger God's precious gift.

Family man? I shudder at the thought.

One of the jurors dismissively said that I was on a quixotic quest to change the world. I freely confessed to trying to do exactly that, if only one drug runner at a time.

And I pray without hesitation that the next foreman is more successful.

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In 1997, Pantego Bible Church (http://pantego.org) established an elementary age church program with a television theme. To augment the wide variety of talented special guests and ensure continuity and solid Bible teaching, "Dr. George" became a regular character modeled loosely but consciously on the Public Broadcasting System's "Bill Nye the Science Guy". The character used science experiments to illustrate Bible applications. I've continued to use this approach through today with good success in conveying practical Bible knowledge to children.

This blog will elaborate more topically on sharing the gospel with and nurturing the growth of young Christians.

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