I was one of 14 empaneled on a jury at the beginning of last week. The trial took a week and deliberations started today - which is when I was kicked off for being the alternate. This sucks! Now I’ll never know what I would have done had I not been an alternate but a “real” juror.
I guess in one way it’s a relief because when it came down to it I didn’t have to make a decision. I had a headache all this morning and my eye has been twitching since last night (miraculously stopped twitching not long after I was dismissed). But I was still tensed to go through with it. I really wanted to know how my fellow jurors saw the case. (They sure didn’t take long to decide.) Now I will never know except that I was just called and told of the “guilty” verdict. I didn’t even have a fellow alternate to commiserate with since she got tossed out on the first day for misconduct.
I know this is how things have to work, and I knew I could be the alternate, but it just sucks that I tried so hard to listen and remain impartial only to be tossed at the last minute.
That failure to launch feeling is got to be a bitch! I am on jury duty right now, I have to go every week to be told I am not needed and I am excused, and I thought that was bad.
I’m sure it sucks. I always feel sorry for the alternates. If you want some closure, you might want to call up the lawyers and offer to be debriefed. We’re often interested in the impressions of the alternates.
I was an alternate on a murder trial where the deliberations took forever. That was miserable. I was locked in a room with the other alternates for days with nothing to do.
I was an alternate once. I sat alone while the jury deliberated and then I didn’t agree with their verdict. From my experience with deliberations (three trials where I was not an alternate) it seems that juries tend to side with the prosecution in criminal cases because they fear letting a guilty person go free more than they worry about convicting an innocent person, when the opposite should be the case.
OP, this happened to be a few years ago. I wanted to know how the case turned out so I found the prosecutors online and emailed them both. Within minutes one had called me and one had emailed back. They wanted feedback from me on certain witnesses they used and what I thought overall about the case. Was very interesting.
I had the opposite experience. We the jury felt that the defendant was most likely guilty, however, we did not feel that the prosecutor had proven their case to the standard necessary for conviction, so we voted for acquittal. (Something about a glove not fitting - JOKING!) The prosecutor was a tad flummoxed by this when we debriefed afterwards. But I felt that the jury executed their duty with integrity.
I guess I’m lucky that they allowed me to go home! I was still not allowed to talk about the case and could have been subject to recall if one of the twelve had an emergency all of a sudden. But they came back with their verdict in about 3 or 4 hours and someone from the courthouse called to let me know what it was.
I think this is what was causing my headache and twitchy eye.
This is the closest I have ever gotten to a deliberation and I wanted to know what it was like. Well, sort of did and sort of didn’t.
This is what bothers me. I think the defendants (a murder case) are probably guilty as hell and the prosecution made a good case of it. However, the video of the crime did not show their faces and there was no fingerprint or other physical evidence to tie them to the scene. Two witnesses who had deals in exchange for their testimony said it was them.
We were instructed that the jury can believe none, some, or all of what a witness says and that their testimony counts as evidence. So I guess in that case, if you believe the witnesses you can convict. It just feels weird! Like I said, I think they were probably guilty but damn. But over the years I have heard people talk in an almost derisive manner about how juries expect lots of CSI-style evidence or they don’t want to convict, so maybe I am dumb for having wanted a bit more.
It’s been about 20 years since I was last called to jury duty, and I haven’t been called since. My first time was 2 years prior to that. Maybe they still go by the ever-dwindling phone book for names, and I’ve been unlisted ever since I switched to mobile.
The closest I’ve come to serving was the empanelment stage. The judge introduced the lawyers, then read off the names of the parties and witnesses, asking if any of us knew any of them. One name was an odd one, and I suddenly realized “I know how to spell that…”
And then I realized I’d probably read some depositions in the case – I’m a proofreader for court reporters, mostly pretrial depositions of fact and expert witnesses, but some utility regulatory hearings and the occasional trial transcripts. (No, it’s generally really, really boring, you have no idea.) So I raised my hand, moved up to the witness box, and declared to the judge and the assembled attorneys that I did believe I’d proofread depos in the case, that I didn’t recall much at the moment but that no doubt what I’d read would come back to me during testimony, and did they really want me on that jury?
