Jury Duty is Fascinating

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.