You Used to be So Amused

I showed up for jury duty yesterday, my second time around on this, and got picked for the first jury panel (80 persons), making the experience more interesting from the get-go than the prior round, spent entirely in rigor mortis, no synapses ever even activated in two days.

Nominal 8-4:30 session (1.5 hr lunch, long enough to walk to office, do timesheet, check email, visit ATM, have lunch, and walk back - I could live with this program!).

There were several hours of fascinating human drama, involving judge, prosecutor, and two defense attorneys probing and trying to get to know this large group. Of course their focus was on any tendency we 80 (!) might have towards bias or prejudice, resistance to or misunderstanding of basic concepts like "presumption of innocence," "reasonable doubt," following the dictates of the court, etc.

Given the time, the sheer numbers, human peccadilos, etc., I would have said "dream on." But, somewhat remarkably, I do think the process managed, eventually, agonizingly, to exclude most of those my unsophisticated judgement would have suggested were inappropriate.

Other than me, that is.

The process is fascinating on ever so many levels (and of course, interspersed with lengthy periods that I would politely describe as “not even vaguely fascinating”).

The folks handling the human “logistics” (stretching the boundaries of that term) here have obviously been through this a gazillion times and certainly have some parts of their routines down pat. Not only do you get a juror number upon being called as member of a panel, you must then line up by number to saunter into courtroom. I don’t know whether this line-forming (in our case, two rows, 1 through 40 and 41 through 80) is even standard in this courthouse, never mind elsewhere. We were each equipped with a laminated 8.5x11 card with a few rules relating to decorum - no food or drink other than the bottled water the mayor just told all of us to foreswear – and take your hat off before entering courtroom (apparently revealing clothing, no shoes, swastikas, political buttons all fine, but hats on head not). The other side had our assigned juror number.

I was wishing I knew Arlo Guthries' phone number. There's an "Alice" followup in my mind.

We were fastidiously lined up in order like munchkins prior to every freakin' re-entry into courtroom. From what I could tell, this was wholly unnecessary throughout most of the proceedings, since our involvement always centered on holding our number aloft so we could be recorded for all posterity for whatever potentially heinous disqualifying bias we might have been goaded into revealing.

I concede it may have once or twice been a minor boon to the judge and attorneys to have some pattern to juror locations, e.g., #24 can’t be too far from the #21 who just spoke (though as time went on, even that seemed an elusive benefit). In general, though, who cares whether 41 is next to 42? Okay, now that I think this through a little more (I’m still a few shy of a gazillion repeats, thank grid!), I can also see motive in not letting impromptu struck-up friendships lead to chatty seat-pairings, for example. And I admit the lining-up part got pretty routine and much quicker after the first time. Or our part did - not the bailiff’s. She was laughably anal.

The bailiff in every case insisted after getting to #40 on walking the length of the hall to start at 41 rather than exercise any grasp of the concept of efficiency (or creativity) and count down from 80 since she was right there after finishing up with juror #40. The repeated line-forming experience and resulting exchanges somewhat supplemented the revelations about species and “peers” garnered from the crowded jury pool room.

I was juror #30, but I believe at least three in front of me were excused yesterday. At the end of voir dire (two rounds of very interesting, sometimes intensive, even uncomfortable, and at-times personal confrontation by prosecutor and two defense lawyers) this morning #31 asked my opinion on our chances and I suggested we would be 5 short of being called. We were then excused for 15 minutes for some inner-circle court confab (very annoying to be flattered as most important part of this American Justice System and yet be repeatedly shrouded without slightest even vague explanation) while “something” happened. (Especially since it made for yet another bailiff line-up and counting episode.)

When we returned, three of the seated jurors and three of the jurors acting as buffer between me and box were excused for various reasons. It quickly became apparent that I was a Total Fool to speculate with no basis or actual prior data on how this might play out. I was on that panel in a few blinks of an eye it seemed, together with #29 and #31. Mysteriously, they were both shortly thereafter excused (ok, one not so mysterious, but the other very much so as a rare responder to those lawyer-prompts). What originally seemed an absurdly large pool for 12+2 suddenly was quite understandable. I think there were about 20 of the 80 left in the pews who sighed with relief and returned to the jury pool.

I am of course forbidden to engage in any communication about the case itself and will honor that charge. But peripheral issues, logistics, and such seem to me quite fair game.

There were a few jurors who were admirably assertive in asking questions. One exchange I particularly admired revolved around the question of how the jury would learn of the meaning and implication of the laws in the case. We had earlier been collectively asked a question along the lines of whether we would be able to accept the judge’s direction as to the law (there were variations on this theme). One young man, concerned about how easily the words of laws can be interpreted in multiple ways, seemed apprehensive at the idea the judge was going to be telling the jurors what the laws mean. Would he be allowed to read the actual laws? No way. The judge’s guidance to the jury would be the sum and substance of the jury’s access to and opportunity to understand the relevant laws. Pretty fascinating - all of a sudden we are supposed to go stupid. I guess I can live with the idea that my judge will be able to act as arbiter between me and the law.

This juror was clearly less than comfortable with that. And, sitting a few numbers lower than me, his presence in the jury box was not-unsurprisingly brief.

But I had questions too. They never seemed to arise when it was opportune to voice them. Maybe you lawyers out there (at least four I can think of on list I forward blog to) can help me with these:

Any reason why the jury alternates (seated in the box, #13 and 14) are not promoted into the main jury when a #1-12 juror is excused?

Is it standard practice that the number of peremptory challenges allowed by the court is kept secret from the juror panel? Is this the judge’s discretion? A legal requirement? A mistake? (In this case I think there were 32 "rounds" of peremptories, far more than I would have imagined.)

The first few rounds of peremptory challenges (one prosecutor, two defense lawyers) seemed to involve three jurors being excused. After the first couple rounds, though, there was an un-signaled change; from then on, at most only one juror was excused in each round. There were several rounds when there was no jury change at all (the judge once mentioned a “pass”). Any thoughts on how the three “votes” in these latter rounds might have been consolidated to arrive at a single juror (or none) being dismissed?