I sat on a grand jury once:
I’ve actually not received a jury summons since then – 2017. I’m quite overdue.
Reading through that post and I realize my views on sitting on the grand jury has changed a bit. It was interesting, but it was also incredibly boring. Being a juror for a criminal trial was much more interesting.
I got my summons and eventually was empaneled on an assault and illegal weapons possession case.
A man was being evicted by his landlord and a local sheriff’s deputy went to his home to serve the eviction notice. For whatever reason the deputy, after banging on the door for a while, entered the house only to find himself facing a guy standing in the hallway pointing a gun at him. He bolted back out the door and a standoff ensued, with the guy in the house eventually surrendering.
When the cops searched the house they found a homemade silencer. Thus the weapons charge.
The deputy and the guy in the house agreed on the sequence of events and basic facts of the story. However, the guy, who was maybe 60, said he was very hard of hearing and was taking a nap and didn’t hear the knocking on the door. He was woken by the door opening – it was mobile home and the door opening literally made the house jiggle a bit – and thought it was a home invasion so grabbed his piece and, well, it turned out it wasn’t a home invasion. He claimed it was all a big misunderstanding. The deputy even testified that when he opened the door the house shook a bit. During the trial the defendant had and used one of those listening devices that sat on the table and looked like a tiny satellite dish used to pick up the voices in the courtroom.
He testified in his own defense. When he went up to the witness stand he forgot his listening device and the judge, who was very soft-spoken, asked him if he needed the device before continuing and the guy, having heard the judge, affirmed that he did.
We convicted him and that 10 second exchange was what sealed his fate. Had it not been for that we likely would have acquitted him on the assault charge. Both sides agreed with each other on what happened and frankly the guy’s reasoning made a lot of sense – definitely a lot of “reasonable doubt” there. Especially strong after the deputy testified that the house shook when he opened the door. There was no doubt or disagreement that the defendant had pointed a gun at a cop. But it was in his own home and he did not leave the house to confront anyone or make any verbal threats to anyone (this was significant, IIRC). Our instructions were that guilt was tied to intent. In order to find him guilty on the assault charge we had to agree with the prosecutor that he intended to threaten the cop specifically because he was a cop. (Or something like that. It’s been like 12 or 13 years now so my details may be off a bit.) On the face of it we didn’t feel like there was deliberate intent there. It really did seem like a misunderstanding.
However, the fact that he heard the judge, who’s speaking voice was barely above that of a whisper, ask him a question when he wasn’t wearing his little amplifier led us to believe he was faking his story. If he heard the judge, why didn’t he hear the deputy banging on his door? We theorized that the deputy could’ve been lying about knocking and then banging on the door but immediately dismissed that idea. So the only remaining conclusion was that the defendant was lying about not hearing the knocks and bangs on the door. If he was lying about that, then he knew it was a cop at the door, and thus he intended to threaten him rather than was simply reacting to an assumed home invasion. Why, I have no idea. He didn’t seem like the type of guy who would be dumb enough to pull a gun on a cop but it takes all kinds, I guess.
I just remembered this: When we were deliberating one of the clerks brought us some of the physical evidence so that we could get a closer look at it. One of these items was the pistol silencer made out a chunk of iron pipe. That the cops had stored in a basic brown paper lunch sack. A brown paper lunch sack that was unmarked in any way. When we were leaving the courthouse after delivering our verdict the clerk, thinking it was an actual lunch one of us had brought in, tried to get us to take it. Thankfully everyone was honest and told her, actually someone had to show her, what was in the bag.
The silencer was clearly homemade and he didn’t have any kind of license for it. His guilt on that one was not in question.
My wife just avoided being empaneled on a jury in a very grisly capital murder case. She was immensely relived that she was not chosen.