Peer Pressure

I've somehow managed to avoid jury duty until now. Jury duty, much like voting, is one of those things that many Americans seem to want to get out of. In fact, given the choice between voting and jury duty, I'm sure many would opt for voting. At least, you know what day it's on, and you know how long it will last (although those standing in long lines in Ohio might disagree).

Having taken a civics class many an eon ago, I recall the process of jury selection. Lawyers can excuse jury members who know too much about the case, either the participants, witnesses, or the facts. It was amazing they could even find a jury for the OJ case, since it occurred many months after the fact.

Lawyers can also use peremptory challenges to essentially kick out a limited number of potential jurors for no good reason. Maybe they want more women, more African Americans, less men, less Asians. There may be some sociological reason for not picking certain individuals that wouldn't pass legal muster otherwise, ie, it'd be discriminatory.

Once selected, jurors listen to the case, then, in a criminal case, they must come to a unanimous decision of not guilty or guilty (notice it's not innocent).

I woke up tres early this morning, like 6 am, merely 5 hours after I went to sleep to try to make a 7:30 am courthouse date. Due to websurfing, getting food, and so forth, I didn't get on the road to the courthouse til 7:15. The directions suggested 30 minutes to the destination. Turns out it was more like 20 or 25 due to lack of traffic.

The courthouse (to me) wasn't well-labelled so I had to ask directions at a Starbucks. That's my rule of thumb. Someone at a Starbucks always knows the directions. And so they did, and so I was able to get to the courthouse.

I knew there was some free parking somewhere, but I didn't want to look for it, and it didn't seem obvious where it was, so I ended up paying the $6 it cost to stay the whole day. Little did I know I wasn't staying the whole day.

Once I passed through security and reached the room where the potential jurors sat, I saw, maybe 100 or more people. Turned out it may have been closer to 200. We were greeted by some courtroom official, who seemed cheerful. She showed as a video on how to be a juror, which looked like it was made in 1985 based on the clothing and hairstyles.

We were each handed one of three colored cards: purple, white, or orange. Each card had a number. I had orange 47. This took a while since nearly 150 cards were passed out. We were informed there were 7 criminal cases, each requiring a jury of 12. We must have had at least 2 people for every juror picked, although at the time, I thought we had more like 10 people for every juror picked.

We waited about half an hour or so, and then the first group, which was purple, was asked to line up in numerical order. They left the waiting room. A little while later, many of them returned.

Then, more waiting. Eventually, they told the people who had purple cards that hadn't been selected to go home. It turns out several cases had already been plea-bargained, and therefore, no jury trial. With a plea-bargain, the defendant claims guilt, and gets a shorter length sentence than normal. Without plea bargains, courthouses would be backlogged with work.

Then, those with white cards were told they could go home. Orange card folks (like me) waited, wondering if we would have to go through the process of voir dire (the selection process). There were hints that we might not have to.

In the end, 6 of the 7 cases were plea-bargained, and so all but 12 people out of the 150 or more potential jurors were sent home. It was 4 hours after the process had started. I spent most of the time trying to sleep. I didn't really sleep as many people used the occasion to talk prodigiously to their neighbors, but that was fine. Even a catnap of sorts was good enough, and it helped time pass. I had brought reading material, but I find being totally fatigued doesn't make me eager to read.

All in all, the court officials were quite pleasant trying to assure us that this was a painless process. However, large number of cheers were heard when potential jurors were being told they could go home.

We were all told that even though we didn't serve, and therefore could possibly be called back within a year, that we had three years off. One woman said it was her third time through this process, and that like clockwork, she's asked every three years to do this.

I don't know whether the jury process is a good thing or not. Are we really peers? Many people don't want to be there. A few like the idea, and want to be jurors. Should decisions about others be made by people with no legal training? I understand it's to prevent a system where judges get out of touch with the citizenry, but is it any better to be judged by those with little training, who'd rather not be there at all?

Overall, I found the experience moderately pleasant, except for the ungodly hour that I had to arrive. The court officials had as much to do with that as anything. I'm sure there's a better way, but if this is the way we have to deal with juries, it's about as pleasant as they can manage.