A few thoughts on my jury experiences in the past month. I was involved in the trial of a man on trial for murdering his wife; the state was seeking a conviction for 1st degree murder. The morning after we returned the verdict, we made the front page of both papers in this area:
Normally I would take the logical approach and discuss the line of reasoning taken, and how we arrived at the verdict we chose. Not today. Today, I will write more about the emotional perspective.
During the jury interview process, we were told that the defense admits he killed his wife. The question to be answered is how she died. Since we already knew he killed her, how tough could the jury assignment be? Very tough, it turned out.
The jury interview process had some interesting moments. In the questionaire, I had indicated that I believe it more important to have a good lawyer than to be right. The defense argued that with me, then moved on. An interesting thing happened during the interview process (other jurists had the same reaction). At the start of the interview, you are not sure if you really want to be on the jury. Big time committment, disruptive, etc. As the interview process gets going, you click into interview mode, and become increasingly determined to "make the cut".
After 90 minutes of discussion, both sides accepted me and I was given the formal "OK".
Testimony started and we learned the circumstances of the case. They were disturbing.
One morning, Gordon and Jean got into an argument about something. He pushed her, whereupon she suffered head wound that was going to be fatal. At this point, he opted to set the house on fire. The questions to be answered were: 1) Did he intend to kill her when he set the fire, 2) Did the fire kill her, 3) Did she die from the head injury.
At a trial like this, you are playing God. That's a tough job. Since only He knows what actually happened, the best you can do is second guess. And, unlike a final exam, there is no one to tell you if you got it right. You never really know. And that can be tough.
In the article above it describes how the family was not happy with our verdict. I guess that's reasonable to expect, but it makes me angry. We gave up a month of our lives, and did our very best. And yet it's not good enough. I'm guessing if we would have returned a manslaughter verdict they would be less happy.
Relying on lawyers is annoying. Many times, there were questions I wanted to ask. Clarifications. Knowing that both sides have a story to tell, and that they are leaving out key pieces of information did not make it any easier. Why didn't anyone ask the defendant if he poured the accelerant on the victim? He was on the witness stand, but NEITHER SIDE thought it useful to pose the question.
One of the jurists referred to it as wanting to throw a yellow penalty flag (like in soccer). He felt our system could be improved by giving the jurors yellow flags. When they saw an obvious mistake, they could throw the flag and declare a penalty. They would then indicate why they called the penalty, and the judge would rule on it. That would make for an interesting trial.
Often I found myself playing the devil's advocate in the jury room. Someone would state one perspective, and I would feel compelled to state the other point of view. My thinking was that if you assume "X" and arrive at a conclusion, then assume "~X" (x is not true) and arrive at the same conclusion, then you can stop worrying about whether "X" is true or not - it does not affect the outcome.
Some of the experiences were downright amusing. The prosecution spent an entire afternoon parading witnesses through who all stated that they did "not go back behind the shelves, and did not turn and levers, knobs or dials". Each witness pretty much gave up a day to do this, and spent maybe 3 minutes on the witness stand. After the defendent took the witness stand, his counsel asked if he had turned off the gas, and he said yes, then went on to explain why. I had to fight to keep from smiling.
Other moments were not fun. We spent an entire day looking at pictures of the victim. The morning had the pictures taken by the fire crew, when they initially recovered the body. Immediately after lunch, we launched into the autopsy photos. Both were difficult to look at, but I had to do so in order to follow the testimony. Indeed, they proved to be a key factor as to why the final verdict was Murder 2 with aggravating factors. The photos were haunting, because (unlike TV), you know it's for real.
Testimony took about 2 weeks. Extreme pressure there to catch everything. Because the jury does not receive their instructions until after we begin deliberating, we do not know what we are looking for. Thus, anything and everything said in court must be duly noted for future analysis. I took about 100 pages of notes during those 2 weeks. The tough part is that, as a jury member, you cannot raise your hand and ask someone to repeat or clarify. So, you have one chance to get it right. I came home extremely tired every night. I could tell my focus at school (I attend night classes for my MBA 2x week) was slipping rapidly.
Deliberations made the testimony look like a cake walk. Days were 12 hours long, with very intense discussions. On several occassions members of the jury lost their cool and ripped into another jury member. This was done respectfully, and righfully so. On a few other occassions, members of the jury broke down into tears because of the extreme pressure.
The end result was all 12 members working together to determine what we believe actually happened. In almost 20 years of working, I don't think that I've ever been on such a large team that worked so well together.
After returning the verdict (2nd degree murder), we were asked to go back to the jury room and wait for a while. A few hours later, we returned for additional instructions. Recent Supreme Court Rulings now require the jury to find aggravating factors before a judge can extend the sentence based on those factors. A raw outpouring of emotion commenced, with an extremely angry jury venting to one another. We thought we were done. Why are we being asked to deliberate on this?!?
There were a few happy experiences too. Dinners at the
Carousel restaurant with a night view of the entire downtown. Lunch at the
M Street Cafe. Feeling like part of a team, with diverse perspectives being brought to bear on the problem at hand. No egos, just a common desire to solve the problem. Having great deputies protecting us.
When Jesse Ventura was the governor, he referred to the media as "jackals". I was fascinated to hear this term used by official folks we interacted with as well. Especially at the end, there was a lot of media attention (reporters, photographers, TV vans outside) waiting to get the verdict. We were able to sneak out the 4th street entrance, whereupon everyone met down at the Liffey for beers. I had a reporter from the Pioneer Press call my home the next day asking for comment. (After watching the press trash Guidant all summer, I had little motivation to help them out.)
After we had delivered our decision regarding the aggravating factors, the judge came in to talk with us regarding the experience. It was really helpful to get her opinion on several things, and to find out some of the "behind the scenes" stuff that had been going on for the past month.
In the end, it is Saturday morning and I am still emotionally exhausted. (We delivered the verdict Wednesday night. It did not help that I had a final exam on Thursday, a final project due Friday, and a take-home final exam due earlier this morning.) But, I am happy I was chosen for this job, and think it was a good life experience.
As with most jobs, the most important component was the people I was working with. I was lucky to get a really good group.
