The Innocence Commission

I have a confession to make.  It appears that I need to be the subject of my own Innocence Commission and retract one of my earlier positions, based on prosecutorial misconduct.

For those who don’t know, Innocence Commissions look at criminal cases where someone has been convicted and there seems to be some fairly strong evidence that the wrong person is in jail. This has resulted in the release of several individuals recently, many of whom had spent decades in jail.

Back on January 9, I wrote about Murder at the Soup Kitchen and placed the blame for the fresh feathers under the bird feeders directly at the feet of the neighbor’s black and white cat.

I admit, I don’t like the cat. I have no particular fondness for felines anyhow, but this one is particularly loathsome. He’s arrogant and always sneaking around the yard, then he sits on the edge of the fish pond looking in like he’s picking out his next victim, as if the six remaining are merely sushi on the hoof waiting for his execution order.

The evidence that he was the perpetrator under the bird feeders was pretty strong against him – from the big windows in the kitchen I can watch him skulking across the yard and trying to sneak up on them. I have no doubt that he’s been guilty of murder in the past, but he may not have been properly identified as the appropriate defendant in January.

I base this in part on something that happened Sunday afternoon about 3:00, right in the heart of prime nap time. I was in my recliner in the den wondering why the story line on whatever was on television (probably Discovery Channel) was so discombobulated.

Of course, the fact that I was watching with one eye and dozing with the other may have contributed to that; since they usually put out pretty high quality stuff.

All of the sudden, there was a tremendous WHAM from the back of the house. At first, I thought there’d been another car wreck at the intersection – which would have put us up to about 19, incidentally – but didn’t see anything out that direction.

Going back to my chair, I happened to look out the kitchen window.

There, under the bird feeders, is one of the hawks that have taken to soaring over our neighborhood. Noble beasts they are, I love seeing them either perched atop the power poles or sailing through the air, hopefully thinning the squirrel population, which could stand a bit of birth control in any form.

Instead of sitting on the pole in the corner of the yard, though, where he usually monitors the comings and goings of the neighborhoods, he was sitting on the brick wall.

Under the bird feeders.

“Communing” with a turtledove. Although identification of which particular dove was there was no longer possible, there are (were) only four that lived in the yard. Now, presumably, there are three and one clutch of eggs is destined to be raised by a single parent.

Piecing things together, the victim must have sensed what was happening and tried to escape – unfortunately, the escape route was through the big kitchen window which wasn’t open.

And as sad as that is for the bird, I’m glad for us because if a sparrow in the house causes a certain amount of chaos, I can only imagine what a hawk chasing a pigeon around would do.

If the evidence on the ground is to be believed, the race ended there at the window when the hawk was able to pull up and avoid the collision and the turtledove wasn’t. Both seemed to go down in the lower patio region, near the hot tub.

When the hawk saw me looking at him, he made his lunch ‘to go’ and headed out to parts unknown.

But it appears that I owe the cat next door a new trial, as his guilt isn’t as clear cut as it first appeared.

That’s OK; there’s always next time.