Civic duty
May. 11th, 2004 09:28 pmToday I had to spend some time in a courthouse, partly at my own expense. I am referring, of course, to jury duty - a duty which is, as is commonly said, only performed by people too stupid to get out of jury duty.
Now, I've been called in for jury duty before and spent time waiting in a room, bored out of my mind because I didn't bring enough to read, and at the end of the day was let go without much rhyme or reason. This time, however, was very different. This time I was randomly picked to serve on the jury, and was not asked to step down and thus not listen to the case.
Yes, I was made a juror.
There were eight of us. This was a six juror trial, but they court asked for two alternate jurors and we had no idea who would be the alternates. And thus we listened. The case can be summed up by the following phrase: driving under the influence. We listened to the testimony of three people: the motorist who originally waved down a police officer regarding the defendant, the police officer, and the defendant who waived his Fifth Amendment rights in order to better make his case.
The motorist mentioned driving in his SUV behind a small car, and watching this red pickup truck swerving over the road. I'm not talking about maybe hitting the fog line to his right once or twice, I'm talking about hitting it twice and hitting the other fog line twice. Yes, he was driving on the wrong side of the road and hit that fog line. The motorist saw the police car coming toward him and frantically waved to it, getting the cop to turn around, stop and ask what the trouble was. The motorist told him, saw the cop pull out and went home.
The cop caught up to the red pickup. The driver was going quite slowly. At that point the road was marked 40mph and the pickup was going 30. The cop observed the truck go completely over the double yellow line and partly over the fog line on the wrong side of the road. He put on his lights so the truck would pull over. The truck initially stopped in the middle of his lane. After a pause it pulled over to the side of the road. The cop smelled alcohol as soon as he got to the defendant, asked several questions and got slurred responses and slow reactions to his requests, not to mention several different answers to the questions Have You Been Drinking (No, then yes), and How Much Did You Drink (nothing, then two Miller Lite's, then three Miller Lite's). He asked the defendant to get out of the car and walk behind the pickup, which he did, stumbling once on smooth level tarmac. The officer put him through five different sobriety tests: walking in a straight line with step counting, holding one foot six inches off the ground for thirty seconds, touch your fingers with your thumb and count them off, touch the tip of your nose with your finger with your eyes shut, and reciting the alphabet. The defendant failed *all* of these tests. Yes, even the alphabet. After failing all of these tests the defendant was placed under arrest. I believe he refused a breathalyzer test - at least, one was never brought up.
The defendant went back over his day, mentioned he'd put in a full day working on a house of his and went to visit a roofer he knows about work on the roof of his house. He had one rum and Coke, went on his way, and at the point the officer had caught him he had had a problem because his dog, a shih-tzu, had come onto his lap to put its face out his window, thus distracting him from driving. He told the officer he'd had one drink, took the sobriety tests to the best of his ability, all the while inviting the officer to simply follow him home, and then got locked up. Oh, and the time the officer saw him was the only time he'd swerved on the road.
The defense attorney did his best to pick apart minor parts of the testimony of the police officer. I'm sorry to say, my initial impression was of a fellow who would do anything he could to get his client off the charge short of actually lying. His behavior did improve as the trial went on. The prosecuting attorney looked a bit harried but was as ready as she could be. I noticed, during her closing speech, that she misremembered several minor parts of the police officer's testimony.
Of the eight of us, two were made alternates - I was not one of those two. We went into the jury room and for the first time talked with each other about the case. At te outset all of us either flat-out thought the defendant was guilty or were leaning strongly that way. We felt that the officer was a credible witness, and the corroborating testimony of the motorist, while short, erased a lot of reasonable doubts we may have otherwise felt. The defendant did not seem particularly credible, and this was agreed upon. Our verdict was unanimous in under half an hour: guilty as charged.
After the trial was over the judge came up to talk with all of us. He'd been giving instruction before, during and after the trial, and wanted to give us some closure. Shortly before he arrived the six of us asked the other two their opinions and were told that they thought he was guilty, which did make us feel better about our judgement. The judge told us a piece of information he hadn't been allowed to tell us beforehand: the defendant was guilty four previous times of driving under the influence. Telling us beforehand may have prejudiced us against the merits of the case, you see.
We were the only jury that sat today. Every other case, and there were ten others, settled before trial because there was a jury present. The potential jurors hadn't needed to do anything aside from be there, and that was enough.
As civic service goes, I found myself appreciating that I had a hand in the law of the land. Yes, I would be willing to serve again. It's not, perhaps, glorious. However, anybody who tells me that juries are only made up of people too stupid to get out of jury service will find themselves getting an earful from me from now on. Rights must be tempered by responsibilities.
Now, I've been called in for jury duty before and spent time waiting in a room, bored out of my mind because I didn't bring enough to read, and at the end of the day was let go without much rhyme or reason. This time, however, was very different. This time I was randomly picked to serve on the jury, and was not asked to step down and thus not listen to the case.
Yes, I was made a juror.
There were eight of us. This was a six juror trial, but they court asked for two alternate jurors and we had no idea who would be the alternates. And thus we listened. The case can be summed up by the following phrase: driving under the influence. We listened to the testimony of three people: the motorist who originally waved down a police officer regarding the defendant, the police officer, and the defendant who waived his Fifth Amendment rights in order to better make his case.
The motorist mentioned driving in his SUV behind a small car, and watching this red pickup truck swerving over the road. I'm not talking about maybe hitting the fog line to his right once or twice, I'm talking about hitting it twice and hitting the other fog line twice. Yes, he was driving on the wrong side of the road and hit that fog line. The motorist saw the police car coming toward him and frantically waved to it, getting the cop to turn around, stop and ask what the trouble was. The motorist told him, saw the cop pull out and went home.
The cop caught up to the red pickup. The driver was going quite slowly. At that point the road was marked 40mph and the pickup was going 30. The cop observed the truck go completely over the double yellow line and partly over the fog line on the wrong side of the road. He put on his lights so the truck would pull over. The truck initially stopped in the middle of his lane. After a pause it pulled over to the side of the road. The cop smelled alcohol as soon as he got to the defendant, asked several questions and got slurred responses and slow reactions to his requests, not to mention several different answers to the questions Have You Been Drinking (No, then yes), and How Much Did You Drink (nothing, then two Miller Lite's, then three Miller Lite's). He asked the defendant to get out of the car and walk behind the pickup, which he did, stumbling once on smooth level tarmac. The officer put him through five different sobriety tests: walking in a straight line with step counting, holding one foot six inches off the ground for thirty seconds, touch your fingers with your thumb and count them off, touch the tip of your nose with your finger with your eyes shut, and reciting the alphabet. The defendant failed *all* of these tests. Yes, even the alphabet. After failing all of these tests the defendant was placed under arrest. I believe he refused a breathalyzer test - at least, one was never brought up.
The defendant went back over his day, mentioned he'd put in a full day working on a house of his and went to visit a roofer he knows about work on the roof of his house. He had one rum and Coke, went on his way, and at the point the officer had caught him he had had a problem because his dog, a shih-tzu, had come onto his lap to put its face out his window, thus distracting him from driving. He told the officer he'd had one drink, took the sobriety tests to the best of his ability, all the while inviting the officer to simply follow him home, and then got locked up. Oh, and the time the officer saw him was the only time he'd swerved on the road.
The defense attorney did his best to pick apart minor parts of the testimony of the police officer. I'm sorry to say, my initial impression was of a fellow who would do anything he could to get his client off the charge short of actually lying. His behavior did improve as the trial went on. The prosecuting attorney looked a bit harried but was as ready as she could be. I noticed, during her closing speech, that she misremembered several minor parts of the police officer's testimony.
Of the eight of us, two were made alternates - I was not one of those two. We went into the jury room and for the first time talked with each other about the case. At te outset all of us either flat-out thought the defendant was guilty or were leaning strongly that way. We felt that the officer was a credible witness, and the corroborating testimony of the motorist, while short, erased a lot of reasonable doubts we may have otherwise felt. The defendant did not seem particularly credible, and this was agreed upon. Our verdict was unanimous in under half an hour: guilty as charged.
After the trial was over the judge came up to talk with all of us. He'd been giving instruction before, during and after the trial, and wanted to give us some closure. Shortly before he arrived the six of us asked the other two their opinions and were told that they thought he was guilty, which did make us feel better about our judgement. The judge told us a piece of information he hadn't been allowed to tell us beforehand: the defendant was guilty four previous times of driving under the influence. Telling us beforehand may have prejudiced us against the merits of the case, you see.
We were the only jury that sat today. Every other case, and there were ten others, settled before trial because there was a jury present. The potential jurors hadn't needed to do anything aside from be there, and that was enough.
As civic service goes, I found myself appreciating that I had a hand in the law of the land. Yes, I would be willing to serve again. It's not, perhaps, glorious. However, anybody who tells me that juries are only made up of people too stupid to get out of jury service will find themselves getting an earful from me from now on. Rights must be tempered by responsibilities.