We found the defendant guilty of all 15 charges and most, but not all, of the enhancements to each charge. To give you an idea of how much stuff was involved, it took an hour and a half for the clerk to read our verdict out loud. We had to reach decisions on something like 100 charges/enhancements.
Based on what I’ve read the defendant is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison.
So ask away! I’ll answer anything I can. This is my second time as a juror (first was a cocaine case years ago).
So are you nervous about having convicted a gang member? I was on a jury about five years ago, and that was my initial fear. But fortunately, my case was of a guy who murdered his wife, who was in the process of trying to divorce him. So I figure he killed the only person he was pissed off at and wasn’t a member of a gang or the Mafia, so I’m probably safe.
Not particularly. The gang in question is a subset of the Surenos, however this set has been declining for 20 years (they used to have ~50 members, recently they were down to maybe 10 and four of them are going to jail for this). Rape is an offense that the Surenos forbid - that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen (obviously) but these guys may already be in a certain amount of trouble with members of the larger gang.
Prior to this the primary offences of this set were breaking into and/or stealing cars.
How long were you in deliberation, and how much convincing did it take to reach consensus?
I ask because a friends recently complain about his set of jury duty, where it was 11-1 for two days until they could convince the last guy that “no reasonable doubt” is not the same as “there are no conceivable alternatives possible, up to and including ‘aliens did it’”.
We deliberated approximately 8 hours over two days. There was a lot of very convincing evidence from multiple independent sources which reinforced each other which made deliberations easier. There were some instances where we had different interpretations of a specific bit of law or evidence and we had to ask for clarification from the court and just work it out, but I would say there was no real sticking point like what you describe.
Everyone on the jury was quite sensible and the judge made it specifically clear in her instructions that “beyond all reasonable doubt” does not mean “beyond all possible doubt”. We did give the defendant the benefit of the doubt in several instances.
Kayaker, the trial lasted approximately two and a half weeks (testimony) with three days to handle closing arguments, jury instructions, deliberations and the reading of the verdict. No, we were not sequestered. Jury selection took about three days before trial started - we had a pool of about 83 people and all but three were excused by the time we got to a jury of 12 plus 4 alternates.
How do you keep track of a huge amount of evidence concerning 15 separate charges that was undoubtedly presented over many days? Do you find yourself forgetting on one day what was discussed the previous day?
Not allowed to during the trial, or not allowed to ever? In the U.S. jurors can’t discuss the case or deliberations during, but afterwards can talk to anyone or no one.
Voir dire went fine - I’m definitely a talker and I got asked a number of questions by both attorneys but I think I come across as a pretty reasonable guy. I was one of the first twelve people seated during selection and I never came out so I evidently seemed decent from the start.
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Public defender?
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No, I believe she’s a private criminal attorney.
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How do you keep track of a huge amount of evidence concerning 15 separate charges that was undoubtedly presented over many days? Do you find yourself forgetting on one day what was discussed the previous day?
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We were warned up-front that there would be a lot of evidence and that we should take good notes. Notepads are provided by the court, however they had to stay in the courtroom at all times (except for deliberations) and they are destroyed after the verdict is read. Different people wrote different amounts. The notes are not evidence but you are allowed to use your own notes to refresh your memory. If people couldn’t recall exactly who said what or how something was phrased that was useful, and if there was any disagreement in the notes that would have been an indication that we needed to request the court reporter to read back the official transcript of that testimony (we never had to do that).
In addition, all of the pictures, maps, etc. that had been entered into evidence were provided to us in the jury room if we needed to refer back to any of them. Other physical evidence (clothing, flashlight used in the attack, etc) was not given to us.
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In the U.K., jurors are not allowed to speak of the case or their deliberations. Do you think confidentiality or openness is better?
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As pravnik said, in the US the jurors cannot discuss the case in any way whatsoever until it’s amongst themselves in the jury room (and even then it must only be when all jurors are present - if somebody goes to the bathroom you can’t discuss the case) or until after the verdict has been read. At that time we are free to discuss the case with anyone - there are some particular rules about the attorneys (including the defendant) being allowed to contact us to discuss the case (I assume that’s part of assuring proper appeals, attorneys figuring out how they can do their jobs better and so on). I am in favor of this; sunshine is a good disinfectant and all.
Another thing is that a lot of the testimony was used to head off questions about qualifications of witnesses (forensic investigators, gang experts, medical specialists, etc) and to show that the chain of custody of evidence was solid. There were even things like having the victim state for the record that she did not consent to any of the actions that night (because the criminal charges specify “…against the will of the victim” or similar).
How many votes did you take? When I was foreman of a jury for a minor, minor criminal trial in Oakland, we did it in two. Were there jurors who had to be convinced, or was pretty much everyone on the same page from the beginning.
In California there is a law saying that a juror cannot profit from serving for a certain period - a year or two. The judge was practically laughing when he told us this, since our case was so minor that writing a book on it was not going to make you any money.
A lot of votes but roughly speaking, one per item. We handled the charges one at a time - we’d read the charge out loud, discuss the legal definitions, go over the critical facts and then do an anonymous vote (write guilty/not guilty on a slip of paper and put them in a box). The foreman read them out and if it wasn’t unanimous we’d go back and discuss further, however I don’t think that we had any non-unanimous votes on the major charges. For the various enhancements we’d discuss and vote on those openly and those had more back-and-forth discussion.
There were several items where those discussions resulted in people changing their minds but the major decisions were quite smooth - there was a lot of evidence proving the charges and the defense had very little to offer. The defense’s closing argument (which is not evidence, but does make it easier to feel good about how I voted) boiled down to “He did these horrible things but they were not gang activities or hate crimes as charged”.
Did you ever get tired or sleepy, listening to voices droning on and on? That’s something I would have to guard against. I attended parts of a trial once(very, very serious charge) and I was surprised at how boring it could make an alleged criminal offense sound.
No, not really - I found everything to be pretty fascinating (plus at times very grim), but I know that some of my fellow jurors got tired at times. The court was pretty sensitive to this, we had regular rest breaks, could bring coffee in, etc. It wasn’t that the proceedings were boring but that you’re sitting pretty much still, you may just have had lunch, the courtroom was often chilly, etc.
Taking notes helped keep me focused, as did reminders of how serious this was - for example there was a poster-sized photo facing the jury box, showing a bloodstained pole in a location where the victim was taken and repeatedly assaulted. Down at the bottom was the victim’s handprint in her own blood.
What were the other jurors like? Were they reasonable and intelligent?
Did the foreman do a good job in leading the deliberations?
Could you tell what the lawyers were looking for during voir dire based on the questions they asked?
What were the demographics of the jury? Ages, occupations, etc.
Did the jurors socialize during the breaks? For example, did you go out to lunch together? Or did you only interact with each other while participating in the trial?