Jury Duty

I know a lot of people who complain about jury duty. In fact, I'd say the general expectation when one gets a jury summons is to complain about it and to attempt to get out of it. When I got my jury summons, I was actually a little bit excited. In my entire adult life, during which I've had a valid drivers license the entire time and always been registered to vote, I've never received a jury summons. This was my first. Would it really be as bad as everyone said? Would I hate it as much as the general population seemed to? Would it be one giant waste of my time? In a word, no.

Maybe I got lucky. Maybe the newness of it all has influenced my judgement. But so far I have found the experience to be interesting, educational, informative, and a fairly good use of my time. Almost as soon as I was scanned in at the jury room, they took those who were there early for the first orientation. The man running it was funny and informed. Everything was well explained. I did spend a couple hours sitting around, but just after 11:00 I was assigned to a jury pool and a courtroom. I got a long lunch break, then went up to a court room for the beginning of jury selection. We spent the rest of the afternoon in jury selection. I found some of the questions being asked to be unusual. I still don't know what they were looking for in some of the questions. I found I had very little cause to answer anything, which may have worked in my favor. The ones who spoke the most were mostly eliminated from the jury pool. We spent part of the next morning finishing the jury selection process and by lunch I was named juror #7.

Right after lunch we started in with the actual case. The defendant was charged with 4 counts; Assault in the 3rd degree, which is assault on a police officer; possession of a controlled substance; illegal use of drug paraphernalia; and intimidation of a public servant. Oddly, the last count was dropped at some point but we weren't told until the very end when we were only given 3 counts to consider. We listened to testimony Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday, and Thursday. Some of it was laborious. Some of it was laughable. Some of it was confusing. We were sent out of the courtroom often, and sometimes for long periods of time. I can't deny there was a lot of waiting around doing nothing. But in general the process was very interesting and moved forward as quickly as it could. By Thursday afternoon testimony was completed and we were given the instructions from the judge and heard closing arguments. Then they dismissed us for the day with a reminder we were still not to discuss it, even with other jurors. We were all in agreement that we couldn't wait to get back the next morning to start!

Friday we were together and ready to start deliberations at 9:00. Even though the assault charge was the first, we left that for last. Most of the jury thought both drug charges were locked up. The prosecutor was sure he had it locked up. But a few of us had some problems. Our presiding juror was wise and had us take each count separately. We wouldn't even discuss the other charges while deciding a verdict on the charge on the table. After some heated discussion, we arrived at verdicts on both drug charges by about 10:30. Ultimately we found him not guilty. We all believed the drugs were his and that he was high at the time, but there was not enough evidence to prove it. There were too many questions and not enough answers. We found it to be a major oversight that the prosecutor had the baggie of drugs tested, but not the residue in the pipe. The testimony on how and where the drugs were found was conflicting, and the officer who was credited with finding the drugs on the suspect didn't testify. We just didn't have enough evidence to convict him, even though we all knew he was guilty. That was a difficult decision to make. There is a much greater difference between innocent and not guilty than I imagined there would be.

Last we dealt with the assault charge. As heated as the discussion was in the drug charges, it was even more emotional in the assault charge. There was a juror who was appalled at the idea of someone going after a cop and wanted an immediate verdict of guilty. There was a juror who was looking and searching for a way to let the defendant off, no matter the evidence. There was a juror who was rubbed the wrong way by the officer to such a degree that she refused to believe anything he said and even told the lawyers after that he needed some serious "retraining" and should even be considered for dismissal. We all found holes and issues and problems in the evidence we were given. We did have a wise judge who not only gave us the requirements of conviction, but also the definition of assault, which turned out to be vital. Ultimately the case was decided not by the testimony of the officer who was assaulted, but by the testimony of what we considered to be a very brave 14 year old girl who witnessed the altercation. The defense tried very hard to make a case for resisting arrest, even telling us outright in closing arguments that the prosecution brought the wrong charge. If we could have added in that charge, we would have. But that came later. The 14 year old girl who testified was very clear that the defendant made the first move, that he swung at the officer first. The defendant was the aggressor. The officer had not yet made a move to arrest him, just the threat if he didn't comply with his demand to put down the beer can and drug pipe he had in his hands. One doesn't resist arrest by charging an officer or trying to beat him down. It was an emotional and difficult decision for the jury, one nobody liked very much, but ultimately we found him guilty of assault. The testimony of the girl was very close to the testimony of the police officer and seemed to verify his version of events. There were no other witnesses to the beginning of the fight. The others that saw more only saw the end of the fight during which I have no doubt the defendant was resisting arrest. But that had no bearing on how it started. It started with the defendant throwing a punch at a police officer. I think the worst part for most of the jury was seeing the look on the face of the defendant as the verdict was read. This man was devastated. Oddly, I was not one of those bothered by it. I may have been the only one. I feel sympathy for him. He has a lot of bad stuff coming his way because of this. But he made the choice to throw the first (and second, and tenth) punch at a police officer. I can't feel bad for upholding the law and convicting him of that crime.

I went into the jury room with the idea that I wanted to vote guilty on the assault and not guilty on the drug charges. I was grateful there were other jurors who saw the same problems I saw and saw the same evidence I saw. The man sitting next to me at the table came in with exactly the opposite idea, that he wanted to vote not guilty on the assault and guilty on the drug charges. Afterwards, he had not a doubt that we made the right decision. I think when someone can come into the jury room ready to vote one way and has no doubts about going the other way when we're finished, we know we did the right thing.

I know I'm only half way through my jury duty. I still have another week and could be assigned to another jury. But I don't hate jury duty. I won't dread my next summons. I've learned that this is a process that works, and that this is a process that needs people who are willing to serve. Yes it can be aggravatingly slow, but I think it is that way to be careful. It's better to be slow and sure than fast and filled with mistakes. Even though child care is getting more difficult and I've already served and completed my service on a jury, I'm still looking forward to next week. And next time a jury summons comes, I won't be one of those complaining about it.