Time Served

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything new. I’m sorry about that. I just didn’t have the will to write during my extended incarceration. But yesterday was my last day as a juror and now I can finally enjoy the splendor of freedom.

You might think it sounds like I'm being a drama queen. But imagine, if you will, driving into downtown Los Angeles at seven o’clock in the morning. Walking six blocks from the parking garage to the superior court building. Standing in line at the metal detector. Shrinking to the back of the elevator while more and more people pile in as if they're trying to set a world record. Sitting in a giant room filled with about three hundred people who do not want to be there. Having to listen to Regis and Kelly because one of the "improvements" to the jury waiting room is an old tv that an apparently deaf stranger has decided to put on at blasting volume. You try to drown it out with your ipod, but with very little success.

Then imagine being chosen among a group of forty people to go to into a courtroom on a Friday afternoon. In the courtroom, they call twelve people… you’re not among them. They start to ask the twelve potential jurors questions. Each person is required to tell their entire life story. The length of each story depends on how much the potential juror wants to be excused. People ask for "sidebar" so they can tell even longer stories in semi-private near the judge's bench... though you can totally hear them from the back of the room. Often, questions are asked repeatedly because it's clear that the judge wants to catch someone in a lie or shame them into saying they will be fair even though they have previously stated that they wouldn't be. This carries on for hours. The lawyers take turns excusing anyone who seems biased either toward police or against them.

It is now the end of the day on Friday afternoon and the judge expects to see everyone, including yourself, back for more of the same on Monday morning. It takes until Tuesday afternoon to finish picking the jury. And although you are number thirty-six of forty, you manage to somehow make it into the jury as an alternate because almost everyone before you has been excused and the defense lawyer has run out of chances to get rid of you for saying you might have a tendency to believe a police officer.

And now the trial starts, on Tuesday afternoon, although with the constant recesses and hour and a half lunches, there is only forty-five minutes left for the actual case. And so on Wednesday morning, you arrive to find out that you are now no longer an alternate. You are part of the jury because someone has called in sick. You didn't know people could call in sick. Later, you'll wish you had called in sick, too. You'll wish you were never born.

You spend the day listening to the trial and it seems obvious to you that this is a simple case, because you're pretty sure that the guy who was wearing a gang hat, with gang insignia tattoos on his arms who was standing in an area notorious for gang activity, holding a bag filled with "rock cocaine base" is probably guilty. But you're keeping an open mind! And then the trial turns out to actually be shorter than jury selection, but now the judge must read deliberation rules to you. The reading of the rules takes a full half hour after a fifteen minute mandatory recess, and now you only have half an hour to deliberate before the end of the day recess.

As you're walking into the jury deliberation room a man is already volunteering to be the foreman. You know nothing about him but would rather not be the foreman yourself so when he asks if anyone has any objections, you say no. And so he proceeds to be a crazy, raving lunatic who keeps using the phrase "skimpy police work," doesn't seem to have any actual point beyond that and will listen to no one but himself. The only other person in the room who doesn't think the foreman is crazy is a mild mannered lady who is not very bright. You know she is not very bright because even though it has been stated about four thousand times that the picture that was admitted into evidence of the bag of rock cocaine is the actual bag of rock cocaine found at the scene, (Why wouldn't it be?) she claims that she heard it was a different bag of rock cocaine and requests a read-back of the testimony. Which takes about half an hour longer than you actually have to deliberate. So you walk the six blocks, three of them up hill, back to your car, drive home in rush hour traffic and prepare to come in the next day, hoping it will be your last.

You arrive ready to do business. You have taken mental notes of lots of points you want to discuss that you thought you wouldn't even have to bring up. Crazy ass foreman guy is late. Of course he is. But when he arrives, everyone takes their seats in the jury room, except one man. He's sitting on the couch. Apparently, he has eaten a bad hot dog in the court cafeteria and needs to go to the doctor. He will no longer be on the jury. So you sit in relative silence for almost thirty minutes, waiting for them to locate the second alternate juror to replace the sick juror. Then you are called into the courtroom so the judge can explain, in maddening detail, the events that are taking place. A juror is sick and is excused to go to the doctor, the second alternate will be taking his place. You and the rest of the jurors have to start deliberations all over again from the beginning and disregard anything that was said yesterday. Unfortunately, that does not mean picking a new foreman.

About two hours into deliberations and after trying to keep the foreman from doing any number of inappropriate things whether it be walking into the courtroom (and someone else's trial) to get a notebook without buzzing first or using his personal biases, his imagination or his experiences in NAM to influence his decision... the jury finally decides to have a preliminary vote. After you convince the lady who isn't very bright that "preliminary" means that it is not the final vote and after another juror gets the foreman to actually read the votes aloud, it's 10-2 in favor of a guilty verdict. The two hold outs are OF COURSE the lady who isn't very bright and the crazy ass foreman. Deliberations continue, including an altercation between the crazy ass foreman and a man who reminds you of Morton Downey Jr., until finally the crazy ass foreman says, "You all can deliberate all you want, but I'm not changing my vote. They can throw me off the jury but I'm not changing my vote." So... you are now done deliberating. You are in a deadlock. However, you have to communicate this to the court through a series of buzzes and written requests.

The first buzz is to get the clerk's attention. Then he has to bring in a form. He gives it to the foreman who fills it out and then buzzes for the clerk to pick it up. Time ticks by. The clerk comes back and says the question has to be more specific. The foreman adds something else. The lady who isn't very bright keeps telling the foreman to make sure he writes that the decision was 10 - 2, even though you are sure that one of the rules is that the jury is not supposed to reveal the decision to the court yet. You try to explain to a pair of blank eyes but to no avail. So you let the document go as is, hoping the judge will realize the total incompetence of the foreman. More time ticks by. You stare out the window at the Griffith Park Observatory up on the mountain. You hear a buzz. You have to go to lunch.

You come back from lunch and sit in more silence. About fifteen minutes later, you hear another buzz. The jury is being called into the courtroom.

The judge notes that the foreman has put information into the written request that he should not have, but she gathers that we are in a deadlock and asks the foreman if this is true. He says yes. You hear a ringing noise, but the judge says that the elevators have been acting up and not to worry about it. However, the clerk brings her a piece of paper that says we must evacuate the building. It is a drill. You walk down eleven flights of stairs with a bunch of other jurors and stand around outside the courthouse, wondering what would happen to you if you just bolted.

An hour later, after deciding not to bolt, you line up to go back into the building. Half an hour after that, you are back in the courtroom. The judge asks the foreman if it is true that the jury is in a deadlock and there is nothing the court can do to help them come to a decision. The foreman says yes. She then asks the same question of each juror individually. All the jurors say yes. She then calls the lawyers over for a sidebar conversation. Time ticks away. Finally, she sits down again and tells the jury that she's going to send them back into the room to deliberate further, because the sick juror and the fire drill shortened the deliberation time and the jury only had one preliminary vote so they couldn't possibly have given it their all. And now that it's only a half an hour before end of the day recess, she suggests starting the deliberations now and then going home to "sleep on it." She is in no way suggesting that someone ought to change their vote, but maybe it might help to look at things with fresh eyes the next morning. You are now beyond frustration and are sinking into utter despair. One of the sane jurors asks for a sidebar. The judge says that any further communication has to be submitted in writing. Seriously.

SO... you file back into the jury room and the same sane juror, who happens to have gone to law school, immediately begins to write the polite version of "Our foreman is insane. Please help us." It is passed around the table and signed by everyone but crazy ass foreman and lady who isn't very bright. You buzz the clerk. He picks up the note. You sit in more silence. It is now past the time for the end of the day recess. You are convinced that because of the stringent rules of the court, this will have to be settled tomorrow at nine a.m. You feel like jumping out the window that you are presently looking out of. The clerk returns and says that the judge is asking to speak to the foreman only. You again sit in silence because the lady who isn't very bright won't permit anyone to speculate about what possible craziness the foreman is telling the judge.

The foreman returns and says the judge wants to see everyone in the courtroom. You can tell by the look on the judge and the lawyers' faces that it is finally over. The judge rules that the jury is hopelessly deadlocked and declares a mistrial. You are so overwhelmed from five days worth of utter frustration that has now amounted to nothing, that you actually begin to cry.

Okay, that's enough imagining. I know this post is really long but I had to get it all written down for theraputic purposes. Just so you know I didn't make a scene or anything. I was just really pissed off at what a huge waste of time the whole thing turned out to be. When I got out of the bathroom, the lawyers were in the hall, chatting about the case with the other jurors. Because it was now legal to do so. The defense lawyer actually told us the guy was guilty! What the EFF!?! I guess it's his job to try and get the guy off... he's a public defender... but christ. They (the lawyers) said they wanted to find me because I looked upset and they wanted to assure me that the guy wasn't being set free, that he was going to have another trial with a whole new set of jurors. So I guess that's something. The defender also told me that he thought I was going to be the foreman. I don't know where he got that from. I barely spoke to him. But he said when he was questioning me during jury selection I seemed strong and really honest. I'm gonna have to work on that.

If I get a summons next year I'm going to try anything to get out of it... I'll chew off my own leg if I have to. How's that for honesty?

The End.