Jury Duty
Fascinated Me
I have been
called for jury duty a number of times but this last time, the end of March,
was the first time I actually sat on a jury. It surprised me that we needed only
six jurors and the one alternate. Every other time I went, over sixty people
sat on hard church-like benches for most of the day until twelve were finally
selected. It could take hours just to run through all the people who raised
their hands when asked questions such as, “Do you know the defendant?” or “Have
you ever been in a situation such as this case?”
This time, court
officers ushered us into a small room with a long table and chairs in the
center and other padded chairs around the walls. Less than twenty people signed
in. I got to know the guy next to me—he was having sewer-system problems and
wished he could have stayed home to answer any questions about where to put the
plants the professionals had to remove to dig up the broken pipe. I felt for
him.
We stayed in the
room half an hour before being called into the court room and waited another
thirty minutes to go through the people who raised their hands to the
questions. Once they dismissed a few people, it left ten jurors. Not realizing
they could manage with six, I thought we would be dismissed and they’d have to
try for another jury the next day. No such luck, though to be honest I’m glad I
didn’t miss this experience.
The Trial
The lawyers
objected to a few jurors—the ones who raised their hands, no big surprise—and
the judge explained that this was a criminal versus a civil trial and the
prosecution had the burden of proof—meaning the defending lawyer didn’t have to
prove a thing and the jury had to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that
the prosecution proved the defendant’s guilt. Then the seven of us remaining
were shown into the jury deliberation room to wait until the court was ready to
convene.
The trial
itself, as the judge warned, was nothing like you see on TV shows. The lawyers
hemmed and hawed and seemed ill-prepared, often begging the judge’s pardon as
they took time to read their notes before continuing to question the witnesses.
Deliberation
Many of us
returned to the deliberation room, our minds made up and sure everyone else
would agree with us. We had to reach a unanimous decision and had two
entrenched points of view, not whether the defendant was guilty, but whether
the prosecution proved his case beyond a reasonable doubt, the definition of
reasonable—one tends to think beyond a shadow of a doubt, which doesn’t
apply—our main focus.
In listening to
each other’s viewpoint, we became swayed to one side or another until only one
remained at odds with the majority for a time. We eventually reached a
consensus of opinion. The outcome isn’t important, except to the defendant of course.
The process, the give-and-take of opinions and ideas, gave us a fascinating
insider’s look into our justice system and how different that look can be from
the outside by people not privy to the same facts or lack thereof that the jury
receives. Not one of us regretted the time taken out of our busy lives to
serve.
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