Happy to oblige. Pardon me if this is a little long.
The case was a man charged with multiple counts of possession w/intent to distribute cocaine, a conspiracy charge to distribute cocaine, and a special circumstance of an amount over 5kg of cocaine. The events took place about 8 years ago. Evidence consisted mostly of lots of video surveillance by the DEA and testimony by the defendant’s former supplier, now serving time in jail for dealing cocaine.
It took a day for jury selection. People were very honest and upfront about their feelings and circumstances. The judge and both sets of attorneys were very polite. We went through something like 60+ people to get 12+2 alternates. Most of the people excused were excused for very good reasons (one lady had obvious trouble understanding English, another person had just lost his job, is the sole support for his three kids and had to cancel an interview just to show up on day 1, that sort of thing). There were a few peremptory challenges by both sides that shed a bit of light on what they might think makes a juror sympathetic to their side - for example I favor legalizing drugs, but I said that I’d enforce the laws as they are now written. The DEA was fine with that as was the defense. Another lady is married to an attorney and has very strong feelings against drug dealers, but when questioned said that she could put aside her personal feelings and decide based on the evidence presented.
I’ll also mention that the only black person who was called up for voi dire was immediately excused by the defense (defendant is also black) - as soon as she sat down the defendant spoke to his attorney and the attorney used his next peremptory to excuse her.
Compared to what we’ve all seen on TV and in movies there was little if any drama during the trial. Everyone was calm. Jurors are allowed to take notes, which we all did.
We were under strict orders not to discuss the case in any way unless it was the entire jury pool speaking in private. Any questions had to be written down, signed and handed to the court clerk. We were very scrupulous about following the rules laid down to ensure a fair trial.
Deliberation took us several days. We had a number of questions about the laws and crimes in question, wanted to review a lot of evidence (“The jury would like to listen to call #7 again and replay the video from Friday April 9th”) and so forth. Everyone took things very seriously and we were not flippant in our deliberations - we were all very conscious that we were determining the fate of another person. Probably by dint of not being afraid to speak in public I was voted in as foreman by my fellow jurors which meant I had to keep things on track and got to sign all the little bits of paper (“The jurors will break for lunch from 12:07pm-1:07pm”).
There were two counts of possession that we had little trouble reaching a verdict on quickly (the videos, phone taps and eyewitness testimony all backed each other up) and two others that took much longer. I don’t recall any spurious arguments (“He just looks guilty” or “I hate drugs so let’s just lock this guy up”), we kept on track and everybody expressed their thoughts, talked about how they arrived at their conclusions and so forth. The concepts of “Innocent until proven guilty” and “Beyond a reasonable doubt” stayed uppermost in our minds - several people (including myself) were really sure that the defendant was in fact guilty of two of the counts but not beyond a reasonable doubt and on that basis we found him not guilty of one possession charge, guilty of the conspiracy charge and voted “No” on the special circumstance (over 5kg of cocaine). Verdicts noted down and passed back to the clerk. Before we were called back into the courtroom for our verdicts to be read we were all pretty quiet - even when you have found someone guilty and it’s “beyond a reasonable doubt” it is still uncomfortable to sit in judgement of another person.
Hearing our verdicts read and having to individually state that these were our decisions was tough - several jurors cried and it was hard to see the defendant’s wife crying and taking their little daughter out of the courtroom.
I felt then, and still feel now, that if I was charged with a crime I would feel very comfortable having a group such as I served with judging my guilt or innocence. Everyone was intelligent, reasonable, behaved themselves and showed huge respect for the rules and the law. No drama in the jury room.
After we had been excused the court clerk asked us to remain in the hallway so that the DEA attorneys could speak to us (evidently not unusual for either or both sides to want to talk to the jury, see how they arrived at their verdicts, what helped or hurt the process). Some things that we found out included:
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Reason the case took 8 years to get to court was that the defendant had been on the run from the law. He had recently been caught living in Las Vegas under a different name and he changed identies several times. That was not allowed to be mentioned in court.
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We had incorrectly interpreted part of the conspiracy charge - that would have led to us finding the defendant guilty including the special circumstance (which I assume would have substantially increased his jail time). I note this because we did in fact ask several questions to the court regarding how the conspiracy charge works and what evidence is considered how, but there was a small point that wasn’t brought up in our deliberations which would have changed how we viewed certain things.
I left feeling that I had done my job well, as we all had. “The system” that I saw looked like it worked well and we were not a jury of dimwits or “people too stupid to get out of jury duty” (the next time I hear that I’ll have a few choice words to say). I don’t feel “good” in the sense of boy that was fun, but we did our civic duty and it’s a critical part of our justice system so I feel proud to have served.
I’m sorry that you had that experience. Neither the judge nor jury showed any signs of such behavior in the case I was involved in.
Happy to discuss even more details if anyone wants to hear them.
