I was picked for a jury pool, but I was number 40 and figured there was little chanced I'd end up in the jury box. In the end, I was the last person to become one of the 13 jurors.
It was a criminal trial where the defendant was charged with two counts of second-degree rape and one count of felony harassment (threatening to kill someone). At times, it was extremely compelling, a bit closer to the dramatized trials I've seen on TV and movies than I expected. But other times it was slow; our breaks were long (thank goodness for the courthouse's WiFi) and there were a lot of sidebars (where the lawyers and judge talk outside of the courtroom and we are left in a weird silence).
Watching the testimony of many of the witnesses was engaging, though I felt bad to see the victim and her daughter recount their painful stories, while the other witnesses' testimony (police officers, lab technicians, social worker, nurse) consisted mainly of them going over their resumes and procedures for 25 minutes and giving us useful information for 5. The best part was the testimony of the defendant, who had some hostile back and forth with the prosecutor (though I tried not to let this influence me as an innocent man would also not be friendly to the person trying to put them in prison).
Finally we got to the deliberations. I volunteered to be the presiding juror (AKA the foreman). Most of the jurors engaged in the conversation and made good points (though one guy just seemed confused). I think we did a great job going over all of the relevant evidence and analyzing the important facts.
Two of the counts (there were three total) were pretty easy since the evidence was pretty overwhelming. On both of these no one ever cast a "not-guilty" vote. The last count was more difficult because the evidence was circumstantial. We started with this count, and after two half days on it we were stuck at 10 guilty, 1 not-guilty, and 1 abstaining, so we went on to the "easy" counts before coming back to it.
Our votes were always anonymous, but everyone knew who was on what side of the fence. After we ruled on the first two counts, a few people briefly seemed to switch to not-guilty for the last, probably because they figured the defendant was already going to prison and the evidence on the other rape was stronger, but after we went over the facts again we returned to 10 voting guilty.
On the last day we focused on trying to find reasonable doubt for the last count. Finally we took a vote and were unanimous. After everyone returned to the courtroom we all filed back into the jury box one last time and the bailiff took our ruling forms from me to the court reporter, who read them out-loud. I had assumed that I would be the one to read the verdicts, which is what you see on TV, but I was happy not to be the bearer of bad news.
Now I am left with some interesting reflections.
First of all, my confidence in the criminal justice system has increased. If I ever am put on trial for a crime I didn't commit (not that I expect to) and I had this jury, I'm pretty confident I would be acquitted. There was a strong sense of wanting to honor the innocent until proven guilty directive.
But as far as feeling satisfied with the ruling, I am conflicted. My impression of the defendant, from what little I know of him, is that he is basically a good person who got his heart broken and reacted by doing some unforgivable things to the victim. It's important to have punishments to act as deterrents, and if he wasn't prosecuted this guy could have done the same things to someone else; but there is still a part of me that feels sorry for him.
In the end however, it really wasn't our call as jurors. Our job was simply to determine if we believed the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of committing the crimes we were presented with. The judge is responsible for exacting the punishment.
I can safely say that this experience was one of the most interesting of my life. I doubt I'll ever end up on a trial as compelling as this one again, but the next time I get one of those jury duty notices in the mail, my spirits are more likely to rise than fall.
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