Last week I answered my civic jury duty “invitation” for the DC court system. Not the DC you might immediately think of, but the local county court system with the same initials and, I guess, the same pedigree.
This is the third time I’ve been summoned for jury duty by this court. In retrospect, that averages about once for every ten years I’ve resided in their jurisdiction (and about half the invitations my BBL’s experienced, for which I’m thankful).
In the past, the event ALWAYS came at an awkward time for service, but this time there were no conflicting pressures upon my time and I approached this “opportunity” with a different mindset: I found myself mentally willing, albeit not particularly anxious, to serve should I be selected.
The first couple of hours were no different than my previous visits – essentially a boot camp to explain the process, how honored one should feel that a computer had selected you at random, how even MORE honored you should feel if the computer again randomly selected you for a specific jury pool, but that you could not feel honored if the computer selected you and you happened to somehow be associated with the legislative branch of government, etc. Thank God the court has some minimal standards!
So I felt duly honored when the computer randomly selected me to report to the 999th district court – but they won’t need you for at least an hour. We were instructed to show up again no later than 11:15 or else the sheriff would be sent to find our honored bodies, presumably to dishonor them somehow/someway.
At 11:30 the 999th Court bailiff came to read off my name with approximately 34 other honored people and inform us that (a) the judge does not like cell phones, particularly ones that ring/buzz in his courtroom; (b) if your cell phone does make its presence known, he will bestow a contempt of court fine of at least $100 on your honored wallet, and (c) show up at the courtroom no later than noon without food, drink and preferably your cell phone (or else you know what).
At the appointed hour, we were role-called in to the courtroom. I am not in the first twelve, but find myself well within the first half of prospective jurors. After we genuflect to the cell phone phobic judge, we begin the process of voir dire. Anytime anything remotely representing a French phrase is uttered in Texas, one can be forgiven to assume the worse could happen.
Both the prosecuting and defense attorneys “explained” the voir dire process as meaning “to tell the truth.” They both professed to wanting to get to know us better. In actuality, what they both really wanted to do was start un-randomizing the process of jury selection that the County had spent so much time and treasure to accomplish. In other words, they each wanted to stack the jury in their favor as much as possible. The game was on!
Although we could see the defendant, the rules of this game were that the attorneys could not represent any specific facts of the case; they could only ask questions about jurors thoughts of the case in the abstract. The only specific: the charge in this particular case was burglary of a habitation.
The prosecutor started hitting voir dire paydirt when he explained the penalty for this particular crime could be 20 years to life under certain circumstances. The question: could you consider such a sentence? Much consternation arose among my peers that they could vote for such a sentence. What circumstances would warrant it? The prosecutor offered as one scenario: what if you found out the defendant had murdered someone in the past? Hmmm. Defense attorney calls a sidebar conference with judge. The verdict – let’s adjourn for lunch,
We reconvened at 2pm. It’s the defense attorney’s time at bat. We learn that at one time he was a mayor of a small municipality nearby (I can’t help myself hoping that they had a good audit committee there). He tries to address the prosecutor’s scenario with a different one of his own. We find out if the defendant is found guilty of this crime and, let’s suppose, he was guilty of two other felonies, say as simple as passing 2 bad checks (>$1500 each) twenty years ago, A-HA, then the State would require us to consider that 20-year to life sentence as minimum. Oh, and by the way, what do you think if I don’t put my client on the stand to testify in his behalf? You know he doesn’t have to say a word – you have to presume his innocence. Can you do that? Consternation consequently expressed on several levels amongst my peers = defense voir dire paydirt.
To make the proverbial long jury selection story bearable, the judge eventually called the attorneys to his bench where they conferred for some time. At the end, I was not particularly surprised to learn I wasn’t selected to serve, but I was surprised that NO ONE was selected to serve from this group. The system voir dired itself out of a jury and I’m still unsure of the mechanism (I thought each side could strike 10 prospective jurors apiece which would have still left at least 12).
What I do know is approximately 35 citizens sacrificed a day of their time and treasure (mine amounted to driving ~70 miles + lunch) – but for the infrastructure (judge, attorneys, bailiffs, court reporter, security screeners, etc.) it was just another day at the office, playing the game where they know the rules.
Reflecting upon the experience, I was extremely surprised to learn that seemingly more than half of my fellow jury candidates had experienced some type of theft; most were in-personal (garage, auto, office, etc), but some were of a very personable nature – and under capable attorney questioning, I found out that none of the perpetuators had been identified, much less brought to justice. I, for one, am therefore very surprised at the restraint these “random victims” exhibited at potential sentencing scenarios during voir dire.
One result of all this: I have started setting the home security system again. Why? In addition to the above, what if I told you (hypothetically, of course) I heard a court employee say the defendant has been charged with more than 15 similar offences?
These aren't my words, but they definitely mirror my sentiments:
