My second brush with Jury Duty

Four and a half years ago I was called to Jury Duty, and have not received a summons since then.  I got one a few weeks ago and checked on the computer and I was instructed to report for Jury Duty on Wednesday.  Since I blogged about that experience (HERE) I thought I would blog about this one as well.

I reported on Wednesday and was called up to a courtroom.  This time around there were 80 prospective jurors called up.  (I took the stairs to the 5th floor, and despite the exercising I have been doing for the last two months, it about killed me!!  Sheesh!)

The attorneys were given time to give a brief opening statement, and the District Attorney said that the defendant was on trial because he had gotten into an altercation with a man or something like that and he was going to retaliate.  He saw a car that looked identical and shot at it with a machine gun.  The driver and his two children were injured.  The father was shot in the hip and the little girl was hit in the hand, severing one of her fingers, and in the head, where a bullet is still lodged in her brain.  The defendant says that he was at a barber shop at the time of the shooting.

They called eighteen people up to the jury box and started having everyone answer questions like, your name, the area you lived, occupation, your spouse's occupation, had you ever served on a jury before, are you close friends with anyone in law enforcement, do you know anyone on the witness list, and have you ever been the victim of a crime.  After everyone had answered, then the attorneys could ask you questions.  This process is called Voir dire.  I had never heard that word before, which surprised me.  As questions were asked and answered, the attorneys could keep or excuse prospective jurors, in turn.  Then more would be called to fill the empty seats.

Two things happened that struck a cord with me.  One was that when the judge asked one of the women if she could be fair and impartial, she said she would try.  During questioning the District Attorney called her on that and asked if she understood that she was required to be fair and impartial.  He gave an example by saying, if you were boarding an airplane and you asked the pilot if he could land the plane safely and he said he would try, how much confidence would you have in that pilot?  I loved her answer!  She said, That is all he can do.  He is going to try to land that plane to the best of his ability, but he never knows what may happen.  A bird may fly into the plane, a wing could catch on fire, etc.  He would do the best he could.

Another time the District Attorney was asking several people if they could return a verdict of guilty, if all the evidence pointed to guilt.  Then he asked one woman if he came really close to proving someone's guilt, would she find it difficult to vote not guilty.  I don't remember her exact answers, but he asked her the same question several times before she finally said, yes, she would.

That sat weird with me.  To me, it was as though they attorneys were asking the same questions over and over until they got the answer they were looking for.

We made it all the way though Wednesday without choosing a jury, so we were required to return today.  More were called up and asked the same questions and then were asked if there was anything from the questions discussed the day before that they would like to address with the attorneys.

We went through several rounds, and the Jury got tighter and tighter.  There was one more spot to fill in the Jury box and then there were the six seats in front.  One man was called to fill the box, and then I was the first person to be called to the six additional seats.  I answered all the questions, saying that I was self-employed as a Personal Historian.  The judge asked me to tell him a little bit more about my profession, so I told him that I did family history research, memory albums, event invitations, etc.  He said that sounded like fun, and I said that I certainly enjoyed it.  When he asked me if there was anything I wanted to share with the attorneys, I said that there was something that had been churning over in my mind since yesterday.  I told the attorneys that I felt that, though it may have been unintentional, they had been disingenuous in their questioning of the Jury Panel and I told them what I wrote above.  I said that I thought they would prefer that we told them how we truly felt, and that there was no one who could say, based on all their experiences, biases and personal prejudices, that they could be completely impartial.  But I knew that we would all try to be as impartial as we possibly could. I explained that when asked if the District Attorney had come close to proving guilt, would I find it difficult to render a not guilty verdict, I said that I had thought about what if there was someone accused of murder, but there was no body or gun, yet all the rest of the evidence pointed to guilt, or the evidence was thrown out on a technicality, if I felt the person were guilty and, based on the evidence I had to let them walk with a not guilty verdict, yes, I would have difficulty doing that.  But, that does not mean that I wouldn't do it.  I feel that I could set aside my feelings and look at the evidence and act according to the law.  The judge asked if I felt I could give both sides of the table a fair trial, and I said yes.

The first person the Defense lawyer questioned was me.  Haha!  No surprise.  I clarified part of what I said, and then she turned it over to the District Attorney.  He asked someone else a few questions and then came back to me.  He said that when I first made my statement, he felt defensive and wanted to argue with me, but then he asked a few questions and I clarified my statement and my feelings again.  I said that I wanted to be honest about what I was feeling and not answer in a way that I felt was what he wanted to hear.

The attorneys then had the opportunity to excuse any of us, and they did not.  I was a little surprised, as I was not looking to get off the jury with my statements, but wouldn't have been surprised if I had been excused.  So, with that, the attorneys and the judge left the room to discuss.

At this point something that happened really made me angry!  The deputy was walking towards the defendant and I heard the defendant say to the deputy, "Can you believe this? (pointing to the jurors) You should go up there.  You would do a lot better job than them."  I asked the man sitting next to me if he had heard the comment and he had not.  I guess I was the only one.  But, I mean, what a @*#%$*!!!!!  We were all taking time out of our lives to be there to give him the best trial possible and he was going to be that rude!!  Seriously?!!

The judge and the attorneys came back in and excused one of the extras and then swore in the twelve jurors sitting behind us.  He then said that there were going to be three alternates and had me and two other men sit up in extra chairs in the jury box as prospective alternate jurors.  At that point, the attorneys had to whittle the five of us down to three, and at that, the District Attorney excused me from the panel.

And thus ends my second brush with Jury Duty.

I would have liked to have stayed on the Jury, as the whole process is amazing, and I am willing to do my civic duty.  But, at the same time, with everything going on in life, I was not sad to be excused.