…or, How I Won at Jury
I was called for jury duty this week, for federal district court. I’ve been called a couple of times before, but this time, I actually sat on the jury. I was no longer Barb; I was Juror #4. (Or 93, which was my number in the total group called that day.)
As an experience, it was really interesting. A lot of my friends have mentioned–and this was my attitude, too–that they want to serve on a jury. They want to see the process, experience what it’s like.
In some ways, it was really cool. There were times during the trial that I had to stop myself from smiling just at experiencing stuff I’ve seen on tv and in the movies so many times. One that really got me was when the defense attorney was questioning a witness. Prosecution objected, and the judge overruled, but did the whole, “I’ll allow it, but get to your point” routine. And when the defense attorney objected during the prosecution’s rebuttal because it was so repetitious. (Because it was INSANELY repetitious.) I also found myself giggling almost every time we went into the courtroom because we had to line up by number, but we didn’t sit that way in the jury room, so we’d be scurrying around in the little ante chamber, trying to line up. I felt like I was in elementary school again.
It was a criminal case, with two counts–felon in possession of a firearm, and possession of a firearm with an altered serial number. We started on Tuesday; that morning was just selection and swearing in. In the afternoon–after the earthquake, which hit one sentence into the prosecutor’s opening statement, and the subsequent evacuation–we had the prosecution’s opening statement and two witnesses. Wednesday was the prosecution’s second two witnesses, and they rested. We got the defense’s opening statement and two witnesses. And then lunch! After lunch was rebuttal, the (long) jury instructions, and closing statements. And then we were sent to deliberate. Which we did. All day Thursday. And all Friday morning.
The problem is that part of “possession” is that the defendant knowingly possessed it, and there just was not much evidence of that–and what evidence there was came from one witness. It all came down to this one guy’s credibility. And the questioning was just completely inadequate. The prosecution rested, and I was like, “What? No! I still have so many questions!” I’m sure part of that is that there was undoubtedly evidence that they weren’t allowed to submit for whatever reason. But just things about timing of things, and where people were. The prosecution just focused on completely the wrong thing. And their “star” witness was a bit belligerent during rebuttal. The defense attorney did a good job of redirecting us, I think, and managed to get a witness who was with the defendant at the time of arrest. The case came down to a he said/he said scenario.
When I heard the charge, I was like, “This has to be a slam dunk–how can there be questions?” But when you’re given very little in the way of hard evidence, you’re left with a ton of questions. We actually started heavily in favor of not guilty. My reasoning was that I just didn’t know–and if I didn’t know, I couldn’t vote to convict. We talked. And talked. And talked a lot. It was a great group, honestly; there was a lot of diversity, both in race/gender/age and in opinions, and everyone treated each other with a lot of respect. And there was a lot of laughter, too. Really, I couldn’t ask for a better group. Which is good, because as I said, we spent 8+ hours (longer, you’ll note, than the time spent actually presenting the case) in a small room, talking to each other. (Not taking into account the numerous times we waited in the jury room for the court to be ready for us.) After 4 hours of discussion, we got stuck. The judge told us to keep going. So we talked more. Gradually, the room moved more toward guilty. But early on, we had people say that they were not “sway-able.” Too many doubts to convict. No doubts. The rest of us moved around, and we agreed on a verdict for the second count (not guilty–the prosecution submitted literally nothing into evidence that the defendant knew the gun had an altered serial number). But we hit a wall. So we wrote another note to the judge explaining where we were and how we got there. And so we submitted a partial verdict, and were dismissed.
(How did I wind up voting? I spent a lot of time undecided. But this morning, we read something in the jury instructions that brought me over to guilty. I explained my thoughts ["I'm ignoring all of the controversial stuff and just focusing on the fact that there was a gun on the floor of the car. And this instruction allows me to use my common sense."], and another juror said that I had swayed her. I totally win at Jury!)
But first, the judge came into the jury room to talk to us. He didn’t seem terribly surprised, and acknowledged that the prosecution didn’t do a good job at all. It really should’ve been an easier case than it was–here was a guy in a car with a loaded gun at his feet. But they brought up enough extraneous information–and they did it, not the defense!–that we wound up questioning the credibility of the main witness. So we were a hung jury; there was a mistrial for that count. The defendant will probably be tried again on this charge, and he may very well be found guilty. As a group, we sure thought he was guilty–but did the evidence prove it? Not enough.
It was a good experience. It took longer than I would’ve hoped, but it was really fascinating going through the process, considering everything, debating points. It helped that the other jurors were so respectful and good-natured. I’m not foaming at the mouth to serve again, but I certainly wouldn’t mind. If nothing else, it would be interesting to compare the experiences!
Plus, I have an awesome certificate of appreciation, suitable for framing.