On the last day of school, I received a jury summons for the third week in June. I freaked out a little, and then Alex piped in that I wouldn't have to go being Group 13. I kept the card, figured I'd call in the Sunday before and be dismissed. If I had only known...
We were out of town Sunday, but I decided I'd check the district court website about 3 p.m. to see if they had updated the jury status for the week. Much to my surprise, they called groups 1-19. I panicked, not because I had to go serve jury duty, but because I had 0 plan for my children. Remember, I wasn't going in. so this wasn't on my radar even a little bit. I was supposed to work Tuesday through Thursday, so Alex's sister was coming to stay with us to babysit. We quickly called to see if she would oblige for a 4th day, and she agreed. Whew!
Monday morning I got up and headed to the courthouse. I parked in the parking garage, and I walked up to the 4th floor with a lot of other people! I mean A LOT of other people. Clearly, we were all in the same boat. They checked us in and shuffled us into a courtroom. At one point, I got tired of sitting in silence, and I started counting. I stopped at 116 people. We sat in awkward silence for more than an hour before the coordinator came in and hit play on a video. It was about a 25 minute video on the jury process narrated by Bill Kurtis, if you know who that is. There were things I had never heard before, but I still wasn't clear on what was about to happen. At this point, it was about 10:00 a.m. I'd already been there for almost 2 hours, and the only thing I had learned was what the process looked like. They then read a series of names and sent half of us to a second courtroom and gave us a 15 minute break. Break, who needs a break? We hadn't done anything...
We returned from the break, and they placed 45 of us in numbered seats. I was not one of these people. Those of us without numbers were ushered to various parts of the courtroom to get out of the way. I counted over 100 of us again in this room. It was at this moment that the judge came in and instructed us that jury selection was about to begin in a 1st degree homicide case with charges of aggravated battery and theft as well. There was a second murder trial going on next door which necessitated all of the jurors. The prosecutor came in, his assistant, 3 lawyers for the defendant as well as the defendant himself. I had no words...
It quickly became clear that the numbered 45 were the pool, and those of us on the outside were fillers. The judge instructed us the trial would last 7 days. Then they started the process by asking basic eligibility questions. Do you live in this county? Are you 18? Have you been summonsed in the last year? Are you a nursing mother? Is there a reason this trial would cause a hardship? One by one they eliminated jurors using these questions. Each time they eliminated someone from the pool of 45, they called a name from the "extras" to sit in their seat. My name was called the third time a juror was eliminated, and I became known as Juror 16.
Once we made it through determining everyone in the pool was eligible, we introduced ourselves-all 45 of us. We had a script that included: name, years lived at residence, occupation, spouse's occupation, children and ages, and if you were an officer of any clubs or organizations. We went down the line and both lawyers scribbled notes diligently jotting every single word down next to our numbers. I'm not even certain how long this took, as I was just processing what my body was in the middle of at that moment.
At the conclusion of the introductions, they recessed for lunch. We still had no idea the length of time jury selection would take. I went to lunch and panicked what I would do with my children for 7 days if I had to report to jury duty!
After lunch, we returned to our numbered seats. The prosecutor stood up, and it became clear he was going to ask us more in depth questions to weed out the jurors who would have experiences or opinions that would make us biased for any reason. The prosecutor's style was to ask a question, have us hold up our numbers if it applied to us, and then go through the numbers speaking out loud with each person to determine if there was an issue. These questions included: Do you read the newspaper? Are you familiar with the case? Do you know any police officers? Do you know anyone on the jury panel with you? Are there life experiences that would bias you in this case? Do you know any of the witnesses? Would you be able to look at graphic photographs? Again, all we knew was the defendant's name and that it was a 1st degree murder charge resulting from a stabbing. If he excused a juror for any reason, the defense had to approve it, and then the judge excused the juror. (By the way, they don't easily let you out of your obligation. There was one girl that tried at least 4 times before they finally just dismissed her, because it was clear that she did not want to be there). They then called another name from the extras, and the seat was filled again. We back tracked with that one juror and made sure they passed the initial screening questions, introduced themselves, and then the prosecutor went back through each of his questions. I have no idea how many times we did this, but it was a lot! It was tedious and time consuming. Before long, we looked up, and it was 4:57. They instructed us not to watch the news and to report tomorrow at 9 a.m. for the continuation of the selection process. Ugh.
On Tuesday, I reported again. All 45 numbered jurors were present as well as the extras, so the process continued. Before we even started, they disqualified three jurors for various reasons. One had seen the news and felt biased, one determined a financial hardship would be had on his family if he missed work for 7 days, and one had health issues. We filled the three sports, back tracked through all of the previous questions, and before long, the prosecution determined us all eligible. But we weren't done....
The defense attorney then stood up and proceeded through her line of questioning. She had a very different interview style of the pool. She identified specific jurors she wanted more information from, and she had a one on one conversation with them in front of the entire group. My conversation mainly consisted of being a teacher, the subject I taught, and the feelings I had of police officers as compared to civilians. The trend of the process was to stand, hold up your number, and speak loudly for the court reporter to hear. At this point, both lawyers could refer to most of us by name and not number. Then she asked various jurors about Facebook, if we believed there were other types of murders besides premeditated, whether we worked well with others, whether we were introverts or extroverts, etc. I had a much harder time understanding what type of information she was trying to find from each of us. I believe through her questioning, she only eliminated a couple of jurors. At this point, we were fairly weeded out, and we were getting antsy. About 11:45 a.m. on the second day, the defense attorney passed us as an eligible panel.
They then began the jury selection process. They did not explain this to us, but from what I could tell, they had each of the 45 jurors listed on a large yellow tablet. The prosecution started, and they crossed a name off. They got up, walked the tablet over to the defense, and they crossed a name off. This was all done while we, the jury panel, sat in front of them in total silence. They continued until noon. At that point, they recessed us for lunch, and told us to report back at 1:30. Upon returning from lunch, the process continued. The attorneys whispered to each other, scratched names off, and then handed the pad to the other side. At 2:55, the prosecution said, "We are done." They had crossed all of the names off except the 15 jurors. He handed the pad to the judge who looked it over. She indicated she would read the names of those not chosen for the panel, and we were to remain seated until she dismissed us.
She started through the list. I was the 17th name of 30 read of the dismissed jurors. What a relief! They chose 12 jurors and 3 alternates. In the end, they chose 8 men and 4 women for the jury panel. Some of the panel had spoken a great deal; some had spoken only in their introduction. Three of the women had no children, and the men were a combination of young and retired. There was strategy, I am sure, but I can't tell you what either of their strategies were.
At the end of day 2, I was exhausted, relieved, and troubled, that 15 of my peers would have to determine the innocence or guilt of the individual I looked at for 2 days. Due to the nature of the first degree murder charge, a determination of sentencing upon guilt was also part of the jury's responsibility. I have no idea how I would have processed my responsibility in the sentence of another person, and I was so thankful I didn't have to be part of that decision.
After arriving home and hugging my children, I googled the case. It involved the death of a female, and I then remembered reading about it in the newspaper! For the entire two days, I had in my mind that the victim was male...
I have a much larger understanding of the jury selection process and importance on the outcome of a trial. I would have never dreamed my jury summons would lead me to this experience, but what a valuable experience it was to be a part of.
