My brush with Jury Duty

I have been called to Jury Duty many times in the past, but I have either had a reason to be excused (leaving the country, giving birth, etc.), or I called several days in a row and was then excused over the telephone. This was the first time that I was actually called to go down to the County Courthouse to report for Jury Duty.

When we arrived on Tuesday morning we registered and then, just as they were about to show the Orientation video, they called a large group of us up to one of the courtrooms. We got there at 9:30am and they started calling a group of eighteen up to the jury box. The judge questioned these eighteen, replacing those that were excused for hardship or other reasons. (I learned a LOT about the jury selection process that I was unaware of. I thought that they talked to all the prospective jurors and then whittled it down to the ones that they needed.)

Early on in the discussion the judge named the charges that were being brought against the defendant. He was being charged with rape of a minor, lewd and lacivious acts on a minor and felony threat. When I heard that my heart just about dropped out of my chest, and you could see that many of the other jurors felt the same way that I did. I did not want to have to sit through a case in which I had to hear all the details of how this man allegedly raped and abused this twelve year old girl. Many of the jurors said they could have sat on a trail for burglary, possibly even murder, before they wanted to deal with the nature of the charges in this case.

It was fascinating to me to watch all the people who, within their minds, knew what the law was and how a person is innocent until proven guilty, but in their hearts, grappling with the idea of being able to be fair and impartial, given the nature of the charges. Several people were saying that they figured he was guilty because the district attorney's office wouldn't bring a case to trial in an overburdened judicial system if they didn't have some good evidence. The public defender and the district attorney asked several very leading questions that gave us a little bit of insight into the possible evidence and arguements in the case. At one point the public defender asked one of the jurors that had recently been through a divorce if she would be bothered to know that the twelve-year-old girl's mother was married to the defendant and they were going through a divorce at the time of the incident. (The DA objected to that question, so he didn't pursue it.) The DA asked several times if the jurors felt that being under the influence of alcohol and meth meant that you were not responsible for your actions. She also asked if we thought that having a mental issue meant that you were not responsible for your actions. The jurors all agreed that being under the influence, or mentally ill, did not mean that you were not responsible for your actions or that you were not capable of intent. And so it went for most of the day.

At 4:30pm a full jury has not been selected, so we had to come back again this morning. At 9:30am we were invited into the courtroom, but then a few minutes later we were asked to step out again. We waited out in the hall for nearly forty-five minutes before we were asked to come back into the courtroom. The judge apologized for the delay in the trial, but explained that the defendant had decided to accept a plea deal and that the case was over and we were all excused. Whew! His voice seemed to get kind of tunneled and far away, as though it wasn't real at first, but when I heard the collective sigh of relief from the rest of the jurors, I knew that I had heard what I thought I did and it was over. I am glad that the twelve year old girl didn't have to sit on the stand and relive all that she had gone through. We all wondered if the depth of the discussion we all went through yesterday made the defendant doubt how well he would be able to do in a jury case, and so he decided to accept responsibilty and go to jail. I am just so grateful for the blessing of not having to be on this jury.

-Lora