Not sure I want to know, but what's an "RTA?"

Road traffic accident.

sharke
It scares me how bad I am at describing a face I've seen only 5 minutes before. I have no idea how the cops end up with those artist impressions from witness descriptions, especially when they're so good that the perp ends up being caught on the strength of it. 

It is not just you. There is a large body of scientific evidence that questions the validity of eyewitness testimony. The police rely on the natural tendency of witnesses to see what they expect to see, and to try to please authority figures who they trust would not present them with an innocent to identify. A vague recollection can become distinctive, detailed and set in stone as the time to testify approaches. Juries, on their part, tend to give eyewitness testimony way too much credibility, since they can see no reason why a witness would "lie" about what he saw.
 
If you have not already seen this demonstration of witness unreliability you should take a look.
 
http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html
 

It doesn't get much more random than this - according to the cops we spoke to, there were 4 guys. 2 of them did hide in my backyard for a while. I am assuming that they are calling me for either one of those two. Not that it actually makes any difference.
 
One of them was facing the other direction, I never even saw his face. The second I saw but for a second. And as much as I'd hate to sound like a racist, the only ID I could give is "slender young african-american" or whatever the PC term is these days. A year later? Forget it...

I have to assume that two of the guys they caught were the same guys I saw in my backyard.
 
Out of the 4 of them, unless two actually confessed that they did hide here, the only "evidence" is the clothing the cops found under the patio set. Personally, I can only assume that it was one of them who left it there. It is most probable, but I cannot be 100% positive about it. I wouldn't know which of them two left it there, either. 
 
It is all purely circumstantial. I didn't see them enter the house they broke in, I didn't see them carrying stolen goods... I called the cops in regards to people in my backyard, but I cannot identify them. The clothing I assume is theirs.
 
Pretty weak...

Hang tough Rain.  I know this is not fun for you but it will all pass in time.  All things must pass right?  I had an event in L.A. where I caught someone break into my house and as soon as I saw them they jumped out the window.  I called the cops and later they picked me up and draw me by the guys they caught.  THey were facing away from us so that our faces would not be clearly visable to them.  THat was it for me and I did not have to go to court.
 
Is there any other recourse you might have with the D.A.?  Hope it is all over soon for you.
 
Jimmy
 

I always crack up when a TV show or movie has a courtroom scene where a useless waste of flesh lawyer asks what a person was doing at a certain time on some date well over a year in the past - and the person claims to know exactly what that was!

Rimshot
Hang tough Rain.  I know this is not fun for you but it will all pass in time.  All things must pass right?  I had an event in L.A. where I caught someone break into my house and as soon as I saw them they jumped out the window.  I called the cops and later they picked me up and draw me by the guys they caught.  THey were facing away from us so that our faces would not be clearly visable to them.  THat was it for me and I did not have to go to court.
 
Is there any other recourse you might have with the D.A.?  Hope it is all over soon for you.
 
Jimmy
 

I wished they'd contacted me for a phone interview or something, to determine whether I could be of any assistance. Personally - and not only because it pisses me off to have to be there - I believe that the only answers I can give would actually serve the accused better than the prosecutor.
 
There are many too many details I can't ignore, too many assumptions which I cannot make, assumptions which would be crucial for the prosecution to get what they want. As much as I find the system isn't a tenth as hard as it should be on criminals, in this case, there's no way anything I can say could be used against anyone without being intellectually dishonest. (Yeah, I know, that's how lawyers earn their life...)
 
The last time I acted as a witness, the judge took a moment to thank me and mention that I was one of the most articulated witness he'd heard in his career. (The fact that it was in French helped I guess...) My tendency to exhaustively analyze events and a certain gift for logical deduction mean that it's a lot harder to get a usable  statement out of me. In this case, this could better serve the defendant than the prosecution.
 
 

Hey Rain, why not just tell them you're a Canadian related to R:Ob Ford? They will toss you out on your butt real fast.

Or point at the judge and say "What's with the guy in the dress?" 

Not that long ago I watched the documentary Trekkies, featuring (you might have heard about her) a lady in Arkansas who showed up for jury duty in full Starfleet attire - uniform, badge and all. 
 
They eventually dismissed her.
 
Considering that I'm currently in a Star Trek marathon finally getting into the Next Generation and streaming (legally) episodes almost non-stop, I think it would be credible that I'd show up with a federation costume, Vulcan ears and all.
 
Maybe it'd work for me.
If not, I could try dressing as a Klingon and requesting either a universal translator or an interpreter.
 
K'pla!!!