Juror #2

Last week I was called to Jury Duty in Common Pleas court in Franklin County. 

The last time I received a jury duty summons was around 2012 and I spent the entire week sitting in the jury pool room reading, texting and making endlessly long lists of the things I’d get done if I were not sitting in the jury pool room.

 

I figured 2025 would be more of the same. Don’t ask me why. I just didn’t have a lot of confidence that they’d call me to possibly serve on a jury. Maybe because there was a HUGE pool of people waiting in that jury pool room.

 

But we learned that there were supposed to be five cases that were to be tried that week, so there was a good chance that most of us would be at least called to voire dire and asked questions to see if we’d be selected to sit on a jury.

 

Two of those five cases immediately settled. Maybe the attorneys caught a glimpse of the stellar jury pool candidates and thought they’d be better off settling their cases or something. But the chance that more people would be just sitting around waiting immediately increased.

 

So on that first morning, I made sure to bring my book club book and an extra large drink cup filled to the brim with water, ice and Crystal Lite figuring I’d be in for a long day.

 

After we finally had our orientation about an hour and a half after we were told it would start (there is a LOT of waiting during jury duty service), two large groups of candidates were called and left to go up to the floor where actual lawyering stuff happens. Not surprisingly, my name was not called.

 

But wonder of wonders, shortly before lunch, my name was read along with another large group of potential jurors. We were instructed to take an hour and a half for lunch and then we’d be escorted up to the floor where actual lawyering stuff happens.

 

An hour and a half for lunch? I never got an hour and a half for lunch in any job I’d ever had and, short of me taking a two-martini lunch or an extended shopping spree at the nearest department store, I couldn’t imagine needing that much time. Heck, I couldn’t imagine dragging out eating the container of yogurt and protein bar I’d packed for lunch longer than ten minutes.

 

Nevertheless, when the appointed hour arrived, we were met upstairs by the Bailiff who introduced himself and lined us up to get ready to walk into the courtroom.

 

I pictured a bailiff looking like Bull or Roz from Night Court or…well…I’m not sure I know any other famous bailiffs from television. This guy wore a suit and not a uniform as he wasn’t in law enforcement.

 

But he was funny and made us all feel at ease and, most importantly, told us the process and what we should expect.

 

All the prospective jurors filled up both the jury box and the gallery seats, but I was #2 in the jury box so I felt like I might get asked a lot of questions. And I was right.

 

The judge and both attorneys asked us lots of questions. It was nothing terribly out of the ordinary until they asked one potential juror somewhere behind me (and thus, I did not see who she was), “Do you think you’d make a good juror?” She said, “Well, yeah, because it’d get me out of the house and away from the kids at home.”

 

That could have been funny except she further clarified the situation by saying she had a special needs child at home and she could use a break from him for the week.

 

Whoa.

 

I’m not sure many of us – including the judge and the attorneys – were able to keep our poker faces on straight during her statement.

 

And, no, she did not make the cut.

 

Compared to her, I apparently made a good candidate and I was selected for this jury. Ever after, I was Juror #2.

 

Since most of us in the free world have watched shows like Law & Order, CSI and Judge Judy, we definitely have some pre-conceived notions of court proceedings. And to a degree, it’s the same – but it’s also much different.

 

I learned that there is not always definitive proof and witnesses aren’t as clear-cut with their testimony as the fictitious witnesses we watch on TV programs.

 

I appreciated that whenever we jurors entered the courtroom, the judge asked everyone else to rise until we arrived at our seats and then he asked everyone in the courtroom to be seated. He said later that he believes this is a sign of respect for the responsibilities that the jurors have accepted.

 

When the attorneys wanted a sidebar or there was an objection, the judge called the attorneys to the bench and then turned on “white noise” so those of us in the jury could not hear them. Consequently, I never once heard, “The jury will disregard the previous statement.” (Which I've always thought seemed a little problematic. We heard it. How do we now ignore it?)

 

Also, while I knew that defendants do not have to take the stand, I didn’t also know that the defense attorney has no obligation to put on a case; that it is all up to the prosecutor to build the case with enough proof that allows the jury to vote guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Or not.

 

All the defense attorney had to do was make opening and closing statements and, in both, he kept calling the relationship between the plaintiff and defendant “toxic.” And when it came time for the Defense to make their case, he said, "The defense rests." Wow. Not sure I was expecting that.

 

I knew that there would be two alternate jurors, but I didn’t know how it was determined who would be the alternates. And I didn’t know that those two people wouldn’t learn that they were alternates until it was time to deliberate. (The two women on our jury who were named as alternates called themselves the “losers” – but were good sports about it.)

 

It made sense, though. I suppose if one knew they were an alternate juror from the beginning, they might be a little less attentive during the proceedings and might, instead, be compiling their grocery list while a witness was on the stand.

We were not allowed to deliberate when the alternates were in the jury room and, if one of the twelve jurors had gotten sick and one of the alternates had to take their place, the deliberations would have had to start all over.

 

I found it interesting that when we were finally given the case and sent back to the jury room to deliberate, one juror kept lamenting that he wanted to see more proof – DNA evidence or fingerprints or something that indicated that CSI had worked the case.

 

The rest of us, of course, given that we were now courtroom experts, told him it didn’t matter that they didn’t have that evidence; that we had to judge the case on what was presented. Period. (Later we learned that there was no disputing that the defendant was the one at the house – so no fingerprints or DNA was necessary.)

 

I was actually proud of our group as a whole. We took our responsibilities seriously and we didn’t discuss the case before instructed to do so. Even though everyone is now so used to looking things up on our phones, nobody did – even to get a full and complete definition of a certain charge. Instead, we did as instructed and sent our request to the judge for clarification.

 

Since our case (which I can talk about now) involved three charges against the defendant – aggravated burglary, aggravated menacing and domestic abuse – we had to deliberate each charge separately. And, again, it was not that easy. 

On the surface, it seemed pretty simple. But the rules of law that we were given clearly stipulated our parameters. And even though (personally), I believed that domestic abuse had occurred, we could not convict since the law states that for domestic abuse to occur, the parties must have cohabitated within the past five years. (I won't comment on what I think about the law itself.)

 

Nevertheless, this is not something I would have known. And, sadly, the plaintiff gave conflicting statements about when they had lived together – and it seemed obvious that it had been more than five years ago.

 

Thus, there wasn’t the proof we needed to convict him of this charge. In the end, we were able to vote guilty for one charge and had to vote not guilty for the other two charges.

 

After we finished our deliberations on Thursday afternoon and the verdict was read in the courtroom, we were released from jury duty. The judge said he’d like to talk to us afterwards if we were so inclined – and both attorneys also came into the jury room.

 

This was unexpected – but also an interesting opportunity as we were then (finally!) allowed to ask pretty much anything. About the case, about the parties and about the rulings.

 

So we spent nearly two hours talking over the case and the law and really learned some things. The judge said it was only the third case this year to come to trial in his courtroom, which surprised me as I’d think these cases would occur much more frequently.

 

By the way, I have no idea what sentence the defendant will get as it is the judge’s responsibility to impose sentencing. Nor did we know what sort of charges they were (felonies or misdemeanors) when we were sent in to deliberate and we did not know what sort of sentence each of those charges might incur should we find him guilty.

 

Given what we learned from the judge and the attorneys, I believe we were all satisfied with our deliberations and our findings. Or at the very least, I’m glad we didn’t learn something that would have changed our minds had we had that information up front.

 

Thus, endeth my time as Juror #2. I was fascinated by the whole process and was glad to finally have been selected as a juror and to serve on a jury.

 

I’m also glad that I’m exempt from being called again for two years and I believe there is even an age restriction that I will qualify for in the future, but it was a good experience to see our court process in action.

 

Now it’s time to get back to my regular life. I’m in the process of making endlessly long lists of things I need to get done since I’m no longer sitting in a jury pool room.

 

Oh, and I’ve gotta give a lot of attention to Miss Maggie Minx who has been a little cantankerous that I left her alone so much last week!