KLSymph's jury duty adventure

[KLSymph]

Behold, for I have held a man's legal fate in my hands!

Contempt-of-Court Disclaimer: It is unlawful for a member of an ongoing case's jury to discuss that case; however, this case has already ended so I can speak about it.  Please don't arrest me.

On a frigid and windy winter Monday, I reported to my county district courthouse, as instructed, for a week of jury duty.

Courthouse entrance guard: "This entrance opens at 8:00 AM."

KLSymph: "But I'm a potential juror.  I'm instructed to be in the jury assembly room at eight sharp.  Being late is legally punishable."

Courthouse entrance guard: "Sorry.  I can't open this entrance before eight.  You'll have to go to the entrance that's open."

I walked a block north (in the snow and wind) to the open entrance, and stood ten minutes in line (also standing in the snow and wind) until everyone made it through the metal detectors.  Then I walked a block south through the building to enter the jury assembly room that's next door to the first entrance.

Government at work.

Jury duty in my court district goes like this: you're summoned by mail to attend potentially up to a week, and you're assigned a number.  Being summoned doesn't necessarily mean you will called for a trial, which depends on how many trials take place and whether you're impaneled or excused during jury selection, and if you're not impaneled, then every day at noon and evening you phone in to see if you must come in for the next round of selections.  Everyone summoned for the week--around five hundred people--comes on the first day and sit in the big jury assembly room, waiting until news of a trial going forward comes and the big random number generator in the sky picks yours as candidate juror.

KLSymph:  "This is my first time as a juror.  I wonder if I'll get picked on the first day."

Three hours pass.

KLSymph: "Wow, I can't believe I got up early to get down here.  I should take a nap to keep me sharp later."

Court bingo announcer: "Wow, it sure took a while, but for the first trial, the following numbers please line up by the door: blah blah blah KLSymph's number blah blah blah."

KLSymph: "...Alright then."

After your number is picked along with thirty other people, you follow court officers to your designated courtroom, stand outside the room in silence for ten minutes, and then you're allowed to enter The Courtroom, where the presiding judge introduces you to himself, the courtroom reporter, the bailiff, the plaintiff, the defendant, and the lawyers of both sides, then gives a thirty minute speech about the importance of being in the jury.

After that, the jury selection process begins.  You take an oath as candidate juror.  The judge gives a one-line explanation of the trial at hand--in this case, a civil suit regarding a traffic accident--and asks you some questions about yourself and your history, such as whether you know anyone in the courtroom and whether you have currently pending court cases of your own.  This excuses some jurors.  After this, the RNG in the sky chooses sixteen juror numbers for the first pass of jury selection, twelve jurors and four alternates.

Court reporter: "Blah blah blah KLSymph's number blah blah blah."

KLSymph: "Really?"

The lawyers of each side asks some questions to these jury candidates.  Most of them are generic yes/no questions that almost everyone answers unanimously.  For the person-by-person questions...

KLSymph ("What's your occupation?"): "Scientific research."

KLSymph ("Where do you get your news?"): "I don't follow the news much.  The Daily Show, I guess?"

Judge: "Thank you all for your answers.  We are progressing quickly in our jury selection.  Oh look, it's twelve.  Lunchtime!  Come back in an hour and a half."

KLSymph: "Man, what?"

After eating a slice of government cafeteria pizza, then sitting in the jury assembly room for another hour and fifteen minutes, we returned to the courtroom at 1:30 PM.

Judge: "Thanks everyone for getting back on time.  The following jury members are excused."

Court reporter: "Blah blah blah KLSymph's number blah blah blah."

Judge: "Please don't interpret this dismissal as a comment on you personally."

Thus, at 1:35, the excused jurors return to jury assembly for possible reassignment to other cases that need jurors.

Court bingo announcer: "Oh no, we're done for the day, you can go home now."

KLSymph: >:(

Court bingo announcer: "What's your juror number?  Ah, yes you have to come in tomorrow morning too."

KLSymph: >:(



Intermission

KLSymph: did you make a sweet sweet 75 dollars?

For the mandatory service of jury duty spanning one work week, you are paid at a rate of five dollars per week, plus a transportation reimbursement calculated based on the distance between your listed residence and the courthouse. Please feel free to donate this payment back to the county. In addition, you are allowed five dollars per day to spend in the courthouse cafeteria or cafe for lunch.  This benefit can be used once per day even if the full amount is not taken, and unused amounts do not roll over to later days.

Government!



On the second day, things went pretty much the same, minus the waiting outside in the snow since I got there after 8AM (my instructed arrival time was 9:15).  I was called again for a trial, and the wait/bingo/introductions/selection/lunch portions proceeded very similarly.  This time after lunch, my jury qualifications survived an additional two rounds of questioning, and I became impaneled.  Since I wasn't asked more questions during those rounds, I conclude based on the differences in the questions that the Daily Show disqualifies you for jury duty.

Once fourteen people--twelve jurors and two alternates--were impaneled, we swore a second oath as impaneled jurors, then heard opening statements from the prosecutor and the defense attorney.  Our trial was a criminal case, in which a man was accused of disorderly conduct against his ex-lover.  After opening statements, we were led to the jury deliberation room while the state prepared to make its case.

During this time, I made two personal observations:

#1: There were twenty-one people in the courtroom: the judge, the court reporter, the court clerk, the bailiff, the defendant, the defense lawyer, the prosecutor, and the fourteen jurors.  Of these 21 people, only two--the defendant and myself--were non-white.

#2: The light in the jury's men's restroom shuts off whenever the occupant closes the door.

About fifteen minutes afterwards, we returned to the courtroom so that the People (represented by the prosecutor) can call witnesses.  I won't go into the details, but here are some observations about the courtroom.

#1: The jury never rises for anything except oaths.  Not even for the judge.  However, the lawyers and their clients do have to stand for the jury, and sometimes for the judge.  In this case, they had to stand at least ten minutes while the judge did whatever he was doing outside the courtroom while the jury sat there and stared at them.

#2: Opening and closing statements are not nearly as smooth and rehearsed as they look on TV.  The lawyers in this case stumbled and stuttered and had to refer to notes quite a lot.

#3: Objections aren't explained much.  There were a few "Objection, relevance" and "Objection, leading" calls, but mostly the lawyers didn't actually say what the problem was.  In the defense's case during jury selection, the judge began to not even bother waiting for an objection before sustaining them because the defense lawyer was asking inappropriate questions of the jury.

Lawyer: "How would you decide whether testimony is truthful or n--"

Judge: Sustained.  Move on.

Lawyer: "If you found the testimony doesn't prove guilt, would you render not guilty--"

Judge: Sustained.  Sidebar.

#4: "Sidebars" are mini-conferences the judge has with the lawyers outside of the hearing of the jury.  However, the courtroom was small enough that while sitting in the positions nearest the judge, I could totally hear and discern the whispers.  Not entire conversations, but I can make out large phrases.

#5: Testimony and cross-examination proceed quickly.  I was scribbling testimony notes as quickly as I could, which wasn't helped by the flabby paper pad the jurors were issued for the purpose.  I think I jotted more pages of notes than anyone else (they were small pages and my handwriting's not art), and I spent most of that time hoping there'd be a sidebar so I could organize my scribbles.

#6: The judge, the lawyers, and the bailiff really made an effort to smile, crack jokes, and be generally friendly.  The court wasn't at all a stiffly formal affair.

After the People's witnesses testified and were cross-examined, the People rested their argument, so we returned to the jury deliberation room so that the defense can prepare its own argument.  For the next hour, we sat in quiet, because the jury is not allowed to discuss the case amongst each other (or anyone else) until all the evidence is heard and the verdict deliberation begins.  We spent some of that time talking about Menards opening a store in a neighboring district soon (one juror worked at Menards), the corruption of the local government (another juror had been a clerk in this courthouse for many years), past jury duty experiences (this was the fifth jury that one elderly man had served on), whether the court had gone to happy hour (...maybe?), and other tangents.  Looking around the jury deliberation room, the only thing there to do was brew coffee.

KLSymph: "I can't turn down some jury room coffee.  I bet once we get that going they'll come to get us though."

After the coffee was finished brewing and everyone who wanted a cup got one poured, the bailiff came to bring us back to the courtroom.

KLSymph: *sigh*

After that hour of waiting, we returned to the courtroom, sat down, and prepared to listen to the defense's witnesses.

Defense lawyer: "The defense rests."

Yeah.

The lawyers then proceed directly to closing arguments (see my observation about lawyers not rehearsing; it was awkward).  The judge then reads from some printouts, explaining in full what the juror is supposed to do when rendering a verdict and other bureaucratic details.  At some point during this recital, the judge explains--at this point five and a half hours into the trial, and in one sentence--what "disorder conduct" that the defendant is charged with means legally.

After that explanation, the jury minus the alternates returned to their room to deliberate the verdict.  The bailiff took all of our electronics out of the room, presumably to keep us from accessing online information, then left us to our discussion.

As I quickly reminded everyone, the first order of business was to elect a jury foreman.  We quickly decided to use a selection method called "the guy in the bathroom as we select the foreman is the foreman".

Everyone to that guy as he comes out: "You can be the foreman."

That guy: "Oh, okay."

That guy sits down.

That guy: "Wait, I'm really the foreman?"

Everyone: "Yep."

Everyone discussed the trustworthiness of the witness testimony.  Ideas go back and forth.  I mostly stared at the judge's printout of jury instructions and parsing that one sentence describing what "disorderly conduct" was (that sentence was technically how you find someone guilty of that charge).  The jury hive mind gradually settled on ignoring the emotional appeals of the closing statements and the rightness/wrongness of the defendant's actions and just deciding whether the People met the burden of proof regarding the disorderly conduct charge, and we took a quick vote on the issue.  The vote was unanimous.  This deliberation took exactly fifteen minutes.

We signed the verdict form and alerted the bailiff that we had arrived at a decision.  The bailiff went to inform the courtroom, and we waited another ten minutes or so while they did whatever they were doing.  We spent the time laughing at all the stuff we had to go through today.  After that additional wait, we returned to the courtroom to render our verdict.

Judge: "I hate to do this to you, but I need the jury to return to the hall while I go over one last point of law."

Judge in KLSymph's mind: "Ha ha, psyche!"

A few additional minutes in the hall, we returned to the courtroom (for real).  The revealing of the verdict went like on TV ("Have you reached a verdict?  We have, Your Honor.") except that instead of the foreman reading the verdict, our verdict form was given to the court clerk who read it instead.

KLSymph to foreman later: "I was going to tell you to put a dramatic pause before the verdict, but I guess that wouldn't have worked."

Foreman: "I know, right?  I was giving the clerk an angry look."

The verdict!

Did KLSymph apply his power to condemn?: ShowHide

Not guilty.

So... no.  Curses!

The defendant's only response was to close his eyes.

After the verdict was given, the jury was released from duty.  We returned to the jury room to get our electronics and turn in our trial notes (which would be destroyed).  The judge came in a few minutes later to have one last friendly chat about how he was usually a felony judge who tried murders and stuff but decided to take a disorderly conduct case today, and released us from any more jury duty for the rest of the week (and legally for the next four years, and statistically for the next thirty years).

And at last, we the jury were escorted from the courthouse by police officers, because the building had closed twenty minutes ago.



That was my first jury duty experience as I remembered it, with not much exaggeration.  Despite the immense tedium at points, I found it pretty interesting and a fun time, if only after the fact.  I look forward to my five dollars plus transportation pay, which I'll... have to hand over to my employer.

[Arakawa]

I look forward to my five dollars plus transportation pay, which I'll... have to hand over to my employer.

Tyranny! Fie on the corporate capitalist pig-dogs!

More seriously, that was an interesting summary of the 'typical' jury experience. I've only known people before who were called up and went the whole week without getting a case, or were ruled out in the jury selection process for one reason or another.

[Jason_Miao]

Since I have a JD, I'll probably never get to sit on a jury.  So this was a very interesting read.

The lawyers of each side asks some questions to these jury candidates.  Most of them are generic yes/no questions that almost everyone answers unanimously.  For the person-by-person questions...

Facts you never cared about: This process is called voir dire (pronounced "deer" in 49 states and "dyer" in Indiana)

On the second day, things went pretty much the same, minus the waiting outside in the snow since I got there after 8AM (my instructed arrival time was 9:15).  I was called again for a trial, and the wait/bingo/introductions/selection/lunch portions proceeded very similarly.  This time after lunch, my jury qualifications survived an additional two rounds of questioning, and I became impaneled.  Since I wasn't asked more questions during those rounds, I conclude based on the differences in the questions that the Daily Show disqualifies you for jury duty.

Besides any clear indications of bias, both sides are often given a limited number of strikes which they can use on a hunch.  Maybe it was the Daily Show, where the case was about possession of firearms and the defense worried that you'd be adamantly anti-2nd amendment.  Maybe it was the scientific research bit, and one side thought you might come in with biases that he wouldn't be able to work around.

Maybe it was something else ("The defendant, Mr. Ornstead, is charged with battery by deadly fanfic printout."  "Guilty!"  "But we haven't even started this trial ye-"  "Guiltyguiltyguilty!!!").

#2: Opening and closing statements are not nearly as smooth and rehearsed as they look on TV.  The lawyers in this case stumbled and stuttered and had to refer to notes quite a lot.

There's a bit of a truism that if you have to choose between looking smooth and looking genuine, you're better off looking genuine.  Overpracticing speeches can come off as artificial. 

Experience may help w/smoothness; in the small town court where I clerked, the same lawyers were there all the time, and they were fairly comfortable with how everything worked.  They knew the judges and what sort of arguments generally wouldn't work.

I've also heard from one attorney that he believed that if your speech wasn't boring and predictable, it wasn't any good, so he made his awkward on purpose.  This is not a popular viewpoint, though.

Everyone discussed the trustworthiness of the witness testimony.  Ideas go back and forth.  I mostly stared at the judge's printout of jury instructions and parsing that one sentence describing what "disorderly conduct" was (that sentence was technically how you find someone guilty of that charge).  The jury hive mind gradually settled on ignoring the emotional appeals of the closing statements and the rightness/wrongness of the defendant's actions and just deciding whether the People met the burden of proof regarding the disorderly conduct charge, and we took a quick vote on the issue.  The vote was unanimous.  This deliberation took exactly fifteen minutes.

Just because it always seems this way, I bet both lawyers worked extra hard on trying to tweak their emotional appeals.

[KLSymph]

Since I have a JD, I'll probably never get to sit on a jury.  So this was a very interesting read.

By JD, do you mean a Juris Doctor?  I'm not sure that this disqualifies you for jury duty.  In my district, even a judge can be summoned as juror.  Of course, one of the selection questions is "Is any of your friends and family a lawyer?" so who knows how it'll work?

Facts you never cared about: This process is called voir dire (pronounced "deer" in 49 states and "dyer" in Indiana)

I think this was mentioned exactly once during my two days.  Another fact I never cared about: the pool of people called for jury duty is called the venire.  That was also mentioned exactly once.

There's a bit of a truism that if you have to choose between looking smooth and looking genuine, you're better off looking genuine.  Overpracticing speeches can come off as artificial.

I can't argue that, but it's depressing to see lawyers with a man's legal fate possibly resting on their speeches not practice a bit more.  Seems unprofessional, or as I thought at the time, inexperienced.  Or maybe I'm just over-educated and used to really smooth lecturers.

Just because it always seems this way, I bet both lawyers worked extra hard on trying to tweak their emotional appeals.

The defense lawyer made a much stronger emotional appeal (attacking the accusing witness's credibility), which in my estimation made for a stronger speech than the prosecutor's.  Yet we all thought that strong emotional appeal kind of made the defendant look worse, and probably harmed the defendant's case on an emotional level.  Ultimately, since the judge explicitly said that opening and closing statements were not evidence, and I only considered the evidence (as instructed), I ignored them completely.  The rest of the jury ended up only questioning the evidence too, so tweaking emotional appeals seemed like a waste of effort.

The stupid thing was that at no point did we examine any evidence, so our verdict was really easy to reach.

[Jason_Miao]

Since I have a JD, I'll probably never get to sit on a jury.  So this was a very interesting read.

By JD, do you mean a Juris Doctor?  I'm not sure that this disqualifies you for jury duty.  In my district, even a judge can be summoned as juror.  Of course, one of the selection questions is "Is any of your friends and family a lawyer?" so who knows how it'll work?

It doesn't disqualify per se.  So in the event that there is a case where both parties don't believe I'd be biased due to something I'd previously seen or read about in regards to a similar case, I could be on that jury.  In practice, I'm told it doesn't happen all that often, since at least one side doesn't want to deal with a potential juror who might be thinking "Hey, aren't the facts of this case similar to that other case I worked on..."

Ultimately, since the judge explicitly said that opening and closing statements were not evidence, and I only considered the evidence (as instructed), I ignored them completely.  The rest of the jury ended up only questioning the evidence too, so tweaking emotional appeals seemed like a waste of effort.

The stupid thing was that at no point did we examine any evidence, so our verdict was really easy to reach.

Based on your description of how the defense didn't introduce witnesses or evidence, it seems as if the defense concluded that the prosecution didn't even meet the initial burden of proof for a conviction, and you agreed.  Although I'm sure it was anticlimatic to actually sit through, it's an important point in law (and I'm surprised the prosecutor bothered to pursue the case if his evidence was that thin), so your description of what happened was interesting for what it didn't say.

[KLSymph]

Based on your description of how the defense didn't introduce witnesses or evidence, it seems as if the defense concluded that the prosecution didn't even meet the initial burden of proof for a conviction, and you agreed.  Although I'm sure it was anticlimatic to actually sit through, it's an important point in law (and I'm surprised the prosecutor bothered to pursue the case if his evidence was that thin), so your description of what happened was interesting for what it didn't say.

Yeah, during the deliberation we were all sort of thinking that the prosecutor didn't even believe his own closing statement about the defendant's guilt regarding crime charged (meaning the defendant probably did something bad, but not enough to qualify as a crime), and that the prosecutor probably got forced to file the case because it was really weak, evidence-wise.  I wondered why the defense didn't just file a motion to dismiss the charges for lack of evidence.  What were they doing for that hour?

Although in retrospect I was happy the defense didn't, because after all that jury duty, would you be more frustrated having to deliver a trivial verdict, or not being allowed to deliver a verdict in the end?

[Yuthirin]

This fucking guy asked for a jury trial. For disorderly conduct. He's an idiot, and his lawyer's an idiot for not talking him out of it. What a waste of time and money.

[Brian]

He had to ask for it?  Also, since he was found not guilty, I don't understand why he was an idiot?

What alternatives did he have?  If KL didn't cover it, since I'm not a lawyer myself ... I have no basis for understanding. o_o;;

[Yuthirin]

As the defendant, you have the choice of having a jury trial or a bench trial.

Jury trials are fairly obvious here.

Bench trials are officiated and decided by only the judge.

You have a significantly better chance to win a bench trial as a defendant than a jury trial, as most often the judge will look at things from a standpoint of the letter of the law, and you really only have to convince one guy instead of 16 or more uneducated jurors.

Bench trials also cost the state less and are generally faster. All you need is one impartial judge.

[Yuthirin]

The problem is that people see trials on TV with the juries and the law and order and etc. and they go, "I GOTTA HAVE THAT! I GET A BETTER CHANCE!" and their lawyer will make more money because it takes longer. Any lawyer with ethics will make at least a cursory effort to dissuade them. A lot of them don't. So you get jury trials for disorderly conduct.

[KLSymph]

I don't think anyone seemed to visibly want to be at trial.  The defense lawyer plainly was having a better time than the prosecutor, but going on sheer cheerfulness the judge wins that comparison.

If we assume the defendant was the one to demand the trial, it's possible that he wanted full vindication rather than plead down to some infraction is below disorderly conduct.  Going into the details a bit here, the defendant was being accused of disorderly conduct for throwing an unidentified liquid at his ex-lover.  (The terms "ex" and "mother of his child" were used frequently but it was never specified if they were ever married, so I don't know if it's ex-wife or ex-girlfriend.)  The only prosecution witnesses were the ex-lover and the police officer who took her statement after the incident.  There's a bit of exes drama going on, so it's not out of the question that the defendant wanted to take home an actual "twelve people say you're full of crap" verdict.

I can give you more of that story, but it's moving out of "our judicial system" and into daytime soap opera.