Since Monday I’ve been serving on a jury as an alternate juror. Since the trial’s over (or at least my role in it) I’m free to discuss everything.
As an alternate I assume that you didn’t get to sit in on the deliberations (when I was a juror the alternates didn’t), but overall what was your opinion of the members of the jury, based on your interactions with them? Did they seem to take the task seriously, did you feel comfortable with those 12 people being in charge of somebody’s fate?
Everybody (including the other alternate) appeared to take it seriously, but I never heard anyone actually discuss the case. Everyone was friendly too, but I still felt like the odd one out since I was the youngest person there. I don’t think alternates should actually know that they’re alternates. I did pay attention to the proceedings and took notes, but the whole time the fact that I almost certainly wouldn’t take part in the deliberations and decide that man’s fate hung in the back of my mind. And why is it that everone gets water except us jurors? :dubious: The judge, lawyers, defendant, witnesses, court clerks, etc all had pitchers of water, but we weren’t even allowed to bring water in from the jury room!
What’s it like being an alternate juror?
But seriously.
What kind of trial was it (i.e., what was the accusation)? Could you give us a little overview of the crime?
What was the rest of the jury comprised of (how many men/women, what age groups, ethnicity, that sort of thing)?
As someone that sat through a two week trial only to be selected as an alternate, I think it sucks. Were you selected as an alternate prior to the start of the trial or after final arguments? In my case, 14 of us sat through the whole thing then 2 of us were selected and dismissed with the other 12 left behind to make the decision. The judge had a box with chips numbered 1 to 14, he randomly drew 2 of them and we were done.