Reply to Topic
Well, my stint with jury duty has come and gone. The entire process last several days and was a pretty massive distraction, but so it goes.
The Trial
The case was about an alleged robbery two and a half years ago; a young African-American man was being charged with robbing a bakery at gunpoint. In addition to the robbery, there were two counts of Aggravated Assault (for pointing a gun at police officers later on), and two counts of Reckless Endangerment (for the same). We heard testimony from one of the women working at the bakery, the owner of the bakery, from the two police officers who tried to question the suspect shortly afterwards, and the detective on the case.
The woman working at the bakery provided the most significant testimony, as she was only a few feet away from the suspect for at least a minute or two (by her account, 4 or 5, though some attempt was made to suggest that the crime was much shorter). The police officer (now retired) who attempted to question the suspect later also gave testimony, though he only saw the suspect's face for a few seconds.
Initial Deliberations
The first day of deliberation was fairly chaotic; we all just tossed out random thoughts about whatever we wanted and argued lightly back and forth. It stayed pretty mellow, but it was pretty haphazard, too. We were at around 8-4 in favor of Guilty (though we didn't specify on which counts at first) near the beginning, and seemed to be tilting a bit further that way when the day ended. Of the 3-4 leaning towards Not Guilty, two were actively defending the position (both older men) while the others merely seemed to have doubt, and were largely just listening to what everyone had to say. Those two both said they'd feel better giving it a night's sleep, if nothing else, and obviously nobody begrudged them that, so we all went home.
The next morning, we all returned, and surprisingly a couple of other people had begun to doubt their original vote of Guilty. We talked about things some more and eventually decided to go through things count-by-count. Turns out, we should've done that a lot earlier, as it immediately forced us to confront each specific point of contention. When we went through each charge, we quickly realized that nobody really doubted the Robbery charge. The woman had seen him for at least a minute solid from just a few feet away, and had identified him from a photo array without hesitation just three weeks later.
Moving onto the other counts is where we began to diverge. An awful lot of time was spent taking issue with the way each charge is phrased; for example, at least one juror could not separate the legal definition of Reckless Endangerment from how he, personally, would normally use such a phrase. Ditto for Aggravated Assault, which threw a couple of jurors who felt that it must include actual physical assault (in reality, merely pointing a gun at someone qualifies).
This all led to us asking the tip staff if we could have the legal definition of each count. As it turns out, it's illegal here in Pennsylvania for the judge to give us a written definition, but he could read it to us again. So, we had to fill out a form (of course), the lawyers and defendent had to be rounded up, and we had to march back down to the court room to be read the definitions. Then, we went back up.
Hearing the definitions again helped crystallize the specific points of disagreement, but little else. I was leaning towards Guilty on all counts, but was eventually persuaded that the evidence of Aggravated Assault was just too flimsy, given that the suspect turned very briefly to the police officers, and then turned away almost immediately afterwards. That, and some of the first officer's testimony was a little uncertain. So, we all agreed on Not Guilty for both of those charges.
Throughout the deliberations, we wasted large amounts of time speculating about things we either a) had no evidence about either way, or b) were specifically supposed to ignore or disregard. People had to be reminded again and again to only consider the evidence. One of the holdouts seemed particularly enamored with the idea that the gun might not have been loaded, or even real at all.
It was pointed out that we didn't have the slightest reason to believe either, and the defense did not offer either protest, but hours were spent talking about it. Some even threw out vague notions of the possibility of police corruption (which, I pointed out, would give them an excuse to dismiss every case that had ever come before the court). It was a horrible waste of time, but it proved impossible to supress completely.
Reckless Endangerment
The point that caused the most confrontation was Reckless Endangerment. The definitions were still a bit fuzzy to us, but we were all treating it as if it was, more or less, recklessly creating the possibility of a dangerous situation. The definition included a stipulation that such behavior must be outside the general standard of normal behavior. It's a much lesser charge than Aggravated Assault (a misdemeanor, rather than a felony), so even though we had agreed on dismissing those charges, most of us felt the action of pointing a gun towards an officer -- even if only done instinctually or briefly -- constituted a reckless act.
Things got really sticky here; of the two holdouts, one doubted the proof that the man the police ran into was necessarily the robber. He said that he thought he probably was, but that there wasn't enough proof. He based this on the officer's fuzzy memory of the jacket he was wearing, even though said officer selected the suspect out of a photo array, just like the old woman (quite a coincidence, I and others repeatedly pointed out). Nevertheless, he thought the fuzzy memory of the jacket was apparently enough to outweight the many coincidences on the other side of the scales.
The other holdout (who looked like Willie Nelson) gave no reason. He continually repeated that he would not change his mind no matter what was said to him, and refused to answer questions about how he had come to his conclusion. I and others asked him questions and rephrased them in different ways, but got almost nothing from him. His only rationale was that the first officer had testified that he did not feel threatened (he actually said he "didn't have time" to be afraid), thus the boy's action must not have been threatening. I pointed out that being threatened and being afraid aren't the same thing, and that the crime is not contingent on whether or not the victim is brave or not.
We also pointed out to him that the issues of fear and threat are beside the point when determining whether or not a potentially dangerous situation was created. He merely repeated his conclusion. I explained that he was only giving us his decision, and not his thought process or rationale for it. He stared at the table and floor, refusing to answer or make eye contact.
I asked him why pointing a gun at a cop isn't creating a dangerous situation. No answer. I asked him whether or not people should be allowed to point guns at cops. No answer. I asked the entire room "is there anyone here who doesn't want an answer to the questions I'm asking?" Everyone wanted an answer. He said nothing.
Eventually he let little things slip, but they only worsened his position. He said that it wasn't reckless "in this instance." Naturally, this led to questions about why this instance was different from others, to which he offered more silence.
Eventually he conceded that the actions in the bakery were reckless and endangered people, so I asked where the line was drawn (quotes are rough, but close): "What's the difference between the reckless actions in the bakery and the reckless actions towards the officers?"
He gave no answer, but after being pressed further and asked again, he offers a response:
Him: "It was only for a second."
Me: "How long does it take for a bullet to reach its target?"
Silence. Staring intently at the floor and table again. I followed up:
"How long does it take to fire a gun?"
Silence. No eye contact. I rephrased again:
"How many seconds before it becomes reckless? Are you saying it's okay to point a gun at a police officer if you only do it for a second?"
Nothing. No reasons, no answers, no thought process. Every now and then he'd repeat his conclusion, and I would explain once again that I wanted to know how he had reached that conclusion. He looked dumbfounded, as if it had never occurred to him that he was required to explain himself. He'd repeat that he wasn't going to change his mind, and I would remind him that we're stuck in this room with specific orders from a judge to talk to each other about this. It made no difference.
The vote for Reckless Endangerment remained 10-2 in favor of guilty, with the one man doubting the police officer's testimony based on his memory of the jacket, and the other simply stonewalling the entire room (he also said some very controverisal things, which I'll get into later). It got so ludicrous that people were chuckling at how blatant the man was ignoring all reason and logic. As one of them put it "what else can you do?"
The Verdict
We went to the judge with our three verdicts, and told him we were deadlocked on the last two counts. He sent us back for another 45 minutes, and we went through the same routine for about 10-15 minutes, with no more progress than before. Still deadlocked, the judge accepted our three verdicts and both sides agreed to throw out the two counts of Reckless Endangerment.
Afterwards
The dropped charges, and the way it happened, was unfortunate, but the Robbery was the most important charge. I was afraid that I might have been hesitant to speak up or take issue with things I disagreed with, and at first I was, but it wasn't an issue after that.
It was amusing to see how quickly everything changed once the verdict was in the books. The defendent was led away and the lawyers asked to leave, and the judge talked with us candidly about his own opinion. He thought we'd gotten it right; the robbery, to his mind, was clear-cut, but the Aggravated Assault charges were too hazy. It was reassuring to hear this, as I was very conflicted about the acquittal there. He asked what the sticking point was on Reckless Endangerment, but nobody spoke up. I considered saying something, but decided not to.
He informed us that we could talk about the case to whomever we liked; the media, if they were there, and the lawyers, who he said often liked to pepper the jury with questions afterwards. He told us that, of course, we should not feel obligated to indulge them. Far from feeling obligated, however, I relished the chance.
It was probably among the most fascinating 30 minutes of my life. Once the trial had ended, everyone from the judge to the lawyers spoke openly and bluntly about everything. It was as if they were simply actors in a play wanting to know how their performances were. We told them we we found compelling, what we didn't, etc. We asked questions about things that never came up, like whether or not the gun was found, if the defendant had a record previous to this, why the people in the bakery didn't testify, etc. The prosecuting attorney said that he was used to the idea that, whatever he thinks a jury's thought process will be, he always ends up being wrong, but that this time, it went the way he would have expected it to. In this sense, he said, it was unexpected by being expected.
About six of us talked to them for a bit, then four. The four of us were, probably not coincidentally, the two most vocal in favor of most of the Guilty charges, and the two holdouts. I stayed until the very end, when all the other jurors had left.
I told them about the stonewalling, the refusal to answer questions, etc. I also told them how he'd said, more than once I believe, that "all cops lie." No kidding. I asked them how he'd gotten by them in the jury selection process, and as I suspected, it seems like that he misled them during the screening, and that he almost certainly lied on the jury questionnaire, which has questions about whether or not you would give more or less weight to a police officer's testimony when compared to other people.
As I eventually walked away, I overheard them saying something about the jury being surprisingly or unusually logical in the way they went about things, which, I admit, made me grin.
Anyway, there are some other little anecdotes, and some other choice phrases from the Willie Nelson juror, which I'll share later, but this post is cray-zay long already, so I'll post those later.
Dunno if anyone will actually read this from start to finish, but I still find this all very interesting to think and talk about, regardless.
The Trial
The case was about an alleged robbery two and a half years ago; a young African-American man was being charged with robbing a bakery at gunpoint. In addition to the robbery, there were two counts of Aggravated Assault (for pointing a gun at police officers later on), and two counts of Reckless Endangerment (for the same). We heard testimony from one of the women working at the bakery, the owner of the bakery, from the two police officers who tried to question the suspect shortly afterwards, and the detective on the case.
The woman working at the bakery provided the most significant testimony, as she was only a few feet away from the suspect for at least a minute or two (by her account, 4 or 5, though some attempt was made to suggest that the crime was much shorter). The police officer (now retired) who attempted to question the suspect later also gave testimony, though he only saw the suspect's face for a few seconds.
Initial Deliberations
The first day of deliberation was fairly chaotic; we all just tossed out random thoughts about whatever we wanted and argued lightly back and forth. It stayed pretty mellow, but it was pretty haphazard, too. We were at around 8-4 in favor of Guilty (though we didn't specify on which counts at first) near the beginning, and seemed to be tilting a bit further that way when the day ended. Of the 3-4 leaning towards Not Guilty, two were actively defending the position (both older men) while the others merely seemed to have doubt, and were largely just listening to what everyone had to say. Those two both said they'd feel better giving it a night's sleep, if nothing else, and obviously nobody begrudged them that, so we all went home.
The next morning, we all returned, and surprisingly a couple of other people had begun to doubt their original vote of Guilty. We talked about things some more and eventually decided to go through things count-by-count. Turns out, we should've done that a lot earlier, as it immediately forced us to confront each specific point of contention. When we went through each charge, we quickly realized that nobody really doubted the Robbery charge. The woman had seen him for at least a minute solid from just a few feet away, and had identified him from a photo array without hesitation just three weeks later.
Moving onto the other counts is where we began to diverge. An awful lot of time was spent taking issue with the way each charge is phrased; for example, at least one juror could not separate the legal definition of Reckless Endangerment from how he, personally, would normally use such a phrase. Ditto for Aggravated Assault, which threw a couple of jurors who felt that it must include actual physical assault (in reality, merely pointing a gun at someone qualifies).
This all led to us asking the tip staff if we could have the legal definition of each count. As it turns out, it's illegal here in Pennsylvania for the judge to give us a written definition, but he could read it to us again. So, we had to fill out a form (of course), the lawyers and defendent had to be rounded up, and we had to march back down to the court room to be read the definitions. Then, we went back up.
Hearing the definitions again helped crystallize the specific points of disagreement, but little else. I was leaning towards Guilty on all counts, but was eventually persuaded that the evidence of Aggravated Assault was just too flimsy, given that the suspect turned very briefly to the police officers, and then turned away almost immediately afterwards. That, and some of the first officer's testimony was a little uncertain. So, we all agreed on Not Guilty for both of those charges.
Throughout the deliberations, we wasted large amounts of time speculating about things we either a) had no evidence about either way, or b) were specifically supposed to ignore or disregard. People had to be reminded again and again to only consider the evidence. One of the holdouts seemed particularly enamored with the idea that the gun might not have been loaded, or even real at all.
It was pointed out that we didn't have the slightest reason to believe either, and the defense did not offer either protest, but hours were spent talking about it. Some even threw out vague notions of the possibility of police corruption (which, I pointed out, would give them an excuse to dismiss every case that had ever come before the court). It was a horrible waste of time, but it proved impossible to supress completely.
Reckless Endangerment
The point that caused the most confrontation was Reckless Endangerment. The definitions were still a bit fuzzy to us, but we were all treating it as if it was, more or less, recklessly creating the possibility of a dangerous situation. The definition included a stipulation that such behavior must be outside the general standard of normal behavior. It's a much lesser charge than Aggravated Assault (a misdemeanor, rather than a felony), so even though we had agreed on dismissing those charges, most of us felt the action of pointing a gun towards an officer -- even if only done instinctually or briefly -- constituted a reckless act.
Things got really sticky here; of the two holdouts, one doubted the proof that the man the police ran into was necessarily the robber. He said that he thought he probably was, but that there wasn't enough proof. He based this on the officer's fuzzy memory of the jacket he was wearing, even though said officer selected the suspect out of a photo array, just like the old woman (quite a coincidence, I and others repeatedly pointed out). Nevertheless, he thought the fuzzy memory of the jacket was apparently enough to outweight the many coincidences on the other side of the scales.
The other holdout (who looked like Willie Nelson) gave no reason. He continually repeated that he would not change his mind no matter what was said to him, and refused to answer questions about how he had come to his conclusion. I and others asked him questions and rephrased them in different ways, but got almost nothing from him. His only rationale was that the first officer had testified that he did not feel threatened (he actually said he "didn't have time" to be afraid), thus the boy's action must not have been threatening. I pointed out that being threatened and being afraid aren't the same thing, and that the crime is not contingent on whether or not the victim is brave or not.
We also pointed out to him that the issues of fear and threat are beside the point when determining whether or not a potentially dangerous situation was created. He merely repeated his conclusion. I explained that he was only giving us his decision, and not his thought process or rationale for it. He stared at the table and floor, refusing to answer or make eye contact.
I asked him why pointing a gun at a cop isn't creating a dangerous situation. No answer. I asked him whether or not people should be allowed to point guns at cops. No answer. I asked the entire room "is there anyone here who doesn't want an answer to the questions I'm asking?" Everyone wanted an answer. He said nothing.
Eventually he let little things slip, but they only worsened his position. He said that it wasn't reckless "in this instance." Naturally, this led to questions about why this instance was different from others, to which he offered more silence.
Eventually he conceded that the actions in the bakery were reckless and endangered people, so I asked where the line was drawn (quotes are rough, but close): "What's the difference between the reckless actions in the bakery and the reckless actions towards the officers?"
He gave no answer, but after being pressed further and asked again, he offers a response:
Him: "It was only for a second."
Me: "How long does it take for a bullet to reach its target?"
Silence. Staring intently at the floor and table again. I followed up:
"How long does it take to fire a gun?"
Silence. No eye contact. I rephrased again:
"How many seconds before it becomes reckless? Are you saying it's okay to point a gun at a police officer if you only do it for a second?"
Nothing. No reasons, no answers, no thought process. Every now and then he'd repeat his conclusion, and I would explain once again that I wanted to know how he had reached that conclusion. He looked dumbfounded, as if it had never occurred to him that he was required to explain himself. He'd repeat that he wasn't going to change his mind, and I would remind him that we're stuck in this room with specific orders from a judge to talk to each other about this. It made no difference.
The vote for Reckless Endangerment remained 10-2 in favor of guilty, with the one man doubting the police officer's testimony based on his memory of the jacket, and the other simply stonewalling the entire room (he also said some very controverisal things, which I'll get into later). It got so ludicrous that people were chuckling at how blatant the man was ignoring all reason and logic. As one of them put it "what else can you do?"
The Verdict
We went to the judge with our three verdicts, and told him we were deadlocked on the last two counts. He sent us back for another 45 minutes, and we went through the same routine for about 10-15 minutes, with no more progress than before. Still deadlocked, the judge accepted our three verdicts and both sides agreed to throw out the two counts of Reckless Endangerment.
Afterwards
The dropped charges, and the way it happened, was unfortunate, but the Robbery was the most important charge. I was afraid that I might have been hesitant to speak up or take issue with things I disagreed with, and at first I was, but it wasn't an issue after that.
It was amusing to see how quickly everything changed once the verdict was in the books. The defendent was led away and the lawyers asked to leave, and the judge talked with us candidly about his own opinion. He thought we'd gotten it right; the robbery, to his mind, was clear-cut, but the Aggravated Assault charges were too hazy. It was reassuring to hear this, as I was very conflicted about the acquittal there. He asked what the sticking point was on Reckless Endangerment, but nobody spoke up. I considered saying something, but decided not to.
He informed us that we could talk about the case to whomever we liked; the media, if they were there, and the lawyers, who he said often liked to pepper the jury with questions afterwards. He told us that, of course, we should not feel obligated to indulge them. Far from feeling obligated, however, I relished the chance.
It was probably among the most fascinating 30 minutes of my life. Once the trial had ended, everyone from the judge to the lawyers spoke openly and bluntly about everything. It was as if they were simply actors in a play wanting to know how their performances were. We told them we we found compelling, what we didn't, etc. We asked questions about things that never came up, like whether or not the gun was found, if the defendant had a record previous to this, why the people in the bakery didn't testify, etc. The prosecuting attorney said that he was used to the idea that, whatever he thinks a jury's thought process will be, he always ends up being wrong, but that this time, it went the way he would have expected it to. In this sense, he said, it was unexpected by being expected.
About six of us talked to them for a bit, then four. The four of us were, probably not coincidentally, the two most vocal in favor of most of the Guilty charges, and the two holdouts. I stayed until the very end, when all the other jurors had left.
I told them about the stonewalling, the refusal to answer questions, etc. I also told them how he'd said, more than once I believe, that "all cops lie." No kidding. I asked them how he'd gotten by them in the jury selection process, and as I suspected, it seems like that he misled them during the screening, and that he almost certainly lied on the jury questionnaire, which has questions about whether or not you would give more or less weight to a police officer's testimony when compared to other people.
As I eventually walked away, I overheard them saying something about the jury being surprisingly or unusually logical in the way they went about things, which, I admit, made me grin.
Anyway, there are some other little anecdotes, and some other choice phrases from the Willie Nelson juror, which I'll share later, but this post is cray-zay long already, so I'll post those later.
Dunno if anyone will actually read this from start to finish, but I still find this all very interesting to think and talk about, regardless.
Yeah, pretty good stuff. His post almost feels like a standup routine.
