I Aim to Misbehave A nice guy trying really hard not to be

My Adventure as a Juror

I’ve received jury summons three times in the past and each time I was fortunate enough to avoid the civic duty that everyone dreads.  That is, until now.

I thought it unusual to get an afternoon jury summons but considering the number of courthouses we have in Houston I suppose it makes sense to have two big batches of jurors a day.   Since the jury summons included free Metro transportation fair I decided to take the MetroRail from the other side of Reliant Park and all the way up to the courthouse area (almost the entire train route).  I must say it is a nice way to get into downtown.  I didn’t have to wait long and the trains seemed to stay on a schedule.

Once I go to the appropriate building I waited around in the jury assembly for an hour before they broke us up into several groups.  Each group went their seperate ways and followed their bailiff to a courthouse.   We discovered that we were assigned to a misdemeanor case so it was to the 9th floor of the criminal courthouse for us. The entrance to the courthouse has the same sort of security you’d find at the airport.  I even had to take off my shoes.  The place was teaming with people from potential jurors to employees and of course a gaggle of civilians.  We piled into a huge elevator and headed up to the 9th floor.

After waiting in the hall for about 30 minutes we finally got into the courtroom for jury selection.  Voir Dire itself went on for a good two hours.  The judge and the attorneys really broke it down to a 5th grade level when they’re addressing the potential jurors.  Seeing as I was #3 on the list it was safe bet that I ran a good chance of getting picked.  Based on both the defense and the prosecutor’s questions, it was pretty obvious that the case involved a DWI where the defendant refused to take a sobriety test.  There were a lot of questions about the signs of intoxication and what is considered reasonable doubt.  The assistant D.A. was fairly new and seemed very nervous but she did nothing wrong that I could tell (we later learned it was her 3rd case).  The defense attorney was pretty slick having obviously been well practiced in DWI cases (I found his fancy website after the trial).  He had a fancy chart of various degrees of determining guilt and it was a powerful tool to persuade jurors on how to determine reasonable doubt.  By the end of Voir Dire, I heard my name called out and was told to return in the morning as a juror for the trial.

The next morning I took the MetroRail back to the courthouse and sat through the proceedings.  We heard opening statements and two witnesses that were cross examined by both attorneys.  In the middle of it all we got to take a lunch break and eat some great food at The Cloister on the taxpayer’s dime.  It was an actual church with food from a place called Treebeards.  I had the red beans and rice with sausage and jalapeno cornbread.  Good stuff!  With full bellies we returned to the courtroom and heard the rest of the cross examination and closing statements before breaking to deliberate.

The story was told by two witnesses: a 19 year old man from across the street and the arresting officer.  The story was that the defendant drove through the neighborhood at 4am and on four seperate occasions peeled out in the street.  He then drove with his lights out and parked in a driveway.  The 19 year old witness had his friend call the cops to report a suspicious car while he went across the street to get a closer look.  The young man found the defendant sleeping or passed out behind the wheel.  The young man knocked on the window but failed to wake the man.

The cop showed up and he too knocked on the window and also could not wake the man.  The cop then opened the truck door, identified himself and poked the defendant with his flashlight.  The defendant woke up, started the ignition and tried to put it in drive.  The office struggled with the defendant, held the gearshift to keep it from getting in gear, and conked the defendant in the head with his flashlight.  He then pulled the defendant out of the truck by his shirt and after a struggle, handcuffed him and stuck him in his patrol car.   While in the patrol car, the defendant knocked his head against the window several times.  At the station (they had a REALLY shitty quality video) the officer tried to administer a sobriety test but the defendant refused and said nothing.  In the video some of us could see him swaying but not all of the jurors.

So that’s what we had to go on.  We deliberated for two hours and simply could not come to a unanimous decision.  Reasonable doubt is so vaguely defined that it made it difficult for many of us without undeniable proof which I guess is the whole reason it went to trial.  The prosecuting assistant district attorney defined reasonable doubt as a feeling that sits well with you.  The defense defined it as being beyond a firm belief.  In reality, what is reasonable to one person is not to another.  By 5pm we still could not come to a verdict so the judge sent us home to sleep on it and to return in the morning to continue.

Sleeping on it and then going over the evidence again in this morning actually swayed two jurors (myself and one other) to guilty which meant we were even at 3 guilty and 3 not-guilty.  There was no way we were going to come to a unanimous decision.  On the far guilty side we had a non-practicing attorney who was sold on guilty after the policeman spoke.  On the far not guilty side we had a Hispanic mother who said she simply could not convict him.  I personally think it was because she sympethized so much with the defendant since he was also Hispanic and close to the same age as one of her sons.  The rest of us were various shades between the two.

By noon we still made no progress and so the judge brought us back into the courtroom and the defense motioned for a miss trial.   After the trial the judge spoke to us and apologized for making us deliberate for so long (we sent 3 notes to the courtroom telling them that we could not reach a unanimous decision and each time the judge replied for us to keep trying.)  The judge really was super nice and very well spoken.  The attorneys then came and spoke to us asking us what made us decide the way we did and what did we have problems with.  I could tell that the defense attorney was hella frustrated since he’s going to have to go through this all over again.  The Assistant D.A. was much more cheerful about it experience.  Personally, I think it was a learning experience for her and she’d probably like the chance to do it again and brush up on her presentation.

It was certainly an experience I will not soon forget.  I actually enjoyed most of it except for having to come back again today since I knew when I went that there was no way this jury could reach a unanimous decision.  I guess it will be several months before they get a chance again for closure.

Here is a slideshow of some pictures that I took during my lil’ adventure.

Prologue: I almost forgot!  In the elevator heading down from the courthouse (this is after the trial) a gentleman in the elevator asked if we were the jurors from courtroom #5 (we were).  He mentioned that he was friends with both attorneys and did we know that the defendant had already had a DWI convinction on his record?  Obviously we didn’t and we were all very surprised to hear it.  It helped us who thought he was guilty feel better about our decision and those who thought him not guilty had to have pondered their decision.  In the end it was good that we did not know that since it obviously would have tainted our impartial judgement but it’s still curious to learn after the fact.