About 6 months ago I received a summons in the mail to appear for jury duty at the beginning of August. I didn't pay too much attention to it because I assumed we would have moved by then, so when I came across it at the end of August I was totally panicked. I don't know if it was all those years of law school or the hundreds of episodes of Law & Order I've watched, but I was sure that there was a warrant out for my arrest and I was going to be hauled off to jail during some routine traffic stop and they police would carry a petrified Charlton off to protective custody. Fortunately, it must not be uncommon for Philadelphians to skip jury duty because when I called to explain a very polite and somewhat surprised lady told me that they had given me a postponement and that I should be getting a new summons soon. Sure enough, I was called to appear on Monday, October 20 at 8:15 am.
I went to the new courthouse which is a few blocks from our house right next to City Hall. I had served on a jury the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college in Kentucky and so I expected a similar experience. The administrative process was much different, however, and I felt like Philly had a much more efficient system. In Phila, residents serve for only 1 day (8:15-4:30) unless they are chosen to be on a jury as compared to Louisville, where they serve for two weeks (at least that is how long it was 10 years ago). In Louisville I was assigned a number and everyday I would have to go down to the courthouse and sit there and wait until at least 11 to see if my number was going to be called. Its a real pain because people really can't plan or let their employer know when they will or won't be there. While in Louisville only a few days of the two weeks did I ever stay past 12 and it was a total waste of time.
So here is what happened in Phila: I arrived at 8:15 at the courthouse. After security screening I was directed into a very nice large room where there were at least 15 rows of at least 40 chairs each. The chairs were they comfy padded type with a side pull desk top. When we entered the room we handed our summons to one court admins and were then given two background questionnaires and a pencil by another. The questionnaires are in quadruplicate form (one for the judge, prosecutor/plaintiff, defense and self). I only had to mark YES on three questions: Are you or any in your family or close to you an attorney...? Are you or anyone in your family or close to you a doctor...? Have you ever served on a jury before...?" After filling out the forms I went to get some of the free muffins, danishes, pretzels, coffee and hot chocolate they were giving out. They had some caterers there that were keeping a fresh supply available. I can tell you they did not have snacks in Kentucky, nor did they have comfy seats or carpet. I also do not I remember filling out any questionnaires.
At exactly 8:30 a very professional lady name Ms. Covington started giving us directions. There had to be probably 400 people in there. She would call out names and the people to line up in sets of 2. Most were groups of 60 each but several were for 40 or 30. I was not called in the first several groups. I read the paper and did Sudoku. At about 10:00, Mrs. Cov came back and called out another group, I was assigned number 20 in a group of 60. I lined up, they passed back our summons, and then someone came and took us up to the 6th floor were we lined up numerically and were ushered into the court room. The first 14 people are seated in the jury box and the rest of the 60 are seated in the gallery. We were told that this was a criminal trial with the charge of involuntary manslaughter involving DUI and this was the beginning of voir dire, the process by which the attorneys and judge question the jury to determine their qualification and suitability to serve as jurors.
The term voir dire means "to speak the truth." During voir dire jurors can be dismissed for hardship, cause or by peremptory challenge. Hardship is where serving on this jury would cause a hardship for your life, not just an inconvenience. For example, there was a radiologist who was dismissed because he was scheduled to attend a training conference that he had registered for 6 months previously and that was only offered once a year.
To be dismissed for cause means that the court finds that something in your personal life, beliefs or those of persons close to you may compromise your ability to make a fair judgment. For example, in this case, which involved DUI, a few of the potential jurors had either been arrested for DUI or had a close family member that was injured in a DUI accident. After probing the jurors about these incidents and whether or not they felt they could be impartial (a couple of which even said yes) the judge thanked them for their service and dismissed them to go back to the jury pool.
A peremptory challenge is the right the attorneys have to dismiss a potential juror without having to give a reason. One reason behind perempts is that if both parties have contributed to the configuration of the jury, they will find its verdict more acceptable. Peremptory challenges are an important safeguard in the judicial process as it allows both the defendant and the prosecution to get rid of potentially biased jurors. Their use allows attorneys to use their training and experience to dismiss jurors who might say the correct thing, but might otherwise harbor prejudices that could infringe the rights of the defendant to a fair trial. Not everyone believes peremptory challenges are beneficial and argue that they undermine the balanced representation on a jury which would occur using random selection. In any event, they are legal in most places under certain conditions.
It is, however, unconstitutional for a criminal prosecutor to remove a persons from a cognizable group (of one race, ethnicity, or gender) based on that group characteristic. This stems from a case from my hometown of Louisville that was heard before the Supreme Court in the 1980s. In that case, a black man was being tried for burglary and the prosecutor perempted all 4 blacks in the jury pool. Basically the court said that the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution guarantees the defendant that the State will not exclude members of his race from the jury on account of race. The ruling was expanded in later cases to apply to gender and in civil trials. Interestingly, the prosecutor in that case has since said that he thought the decision was a "good one" because it prevented prosecutors from discriminating.
In Philadelphia, attorneys are allowed 7 perempts in criminal cases and 3 in civil cases.
Okay, so getting back to the trial at hand and voir dire: After we were settled, the judge gave a little intro to the case, told us that the trial would probably last three days, and then started asking questions to juror 1, mostly regarding the answers given on the questionnaire. The judge went through each juror this way. I was surprised that the between both attorneys they only asked 1 question. At least 5 jurors were dismissed for hardship or cause, and some of the people were saying the lamest things to get dismissed like "Today's my lady's birthday." This judge was pretty lenient and let people go. When the judge dismissed someone he would say something like, "Ok, Mrs. Tattenbaum, we're going to go ahead and dismiss you. Any objections?" Then he looked at the attorneys who always nodded that it was fine. Once dismissed the juror would leave and go back to the jury pool. As such, when the judge was through with that first group of 14 only about half the jurors were left. The court clerk then took a piece of paper that had the remaining jurors listed on it and handed it to the prosecutor who made a peremptory challenge by marking a name off. The clerk then handed the paper to the defense and back and forth until they were done perempting. The clerk then read the numbers of those jurors not perempted and they left with a court employee while the rest were dismissed to the jury pool.
After they finished with that group, the next group of 14 from the gallery took their places in the jury box, which included me. The judge went through the same process and when he got to me he said, "Mrs. Larson, I see you have served on a jury. When was that?" I said, "It was a civil case in Kentucky back when I was in college." He then said, "I see you are an attorney?" I said "Yes, I am a member of the Massachusetts Bar." He said, "That's great. What are you doing here in Philadelphia, I see you have a small child, do you take care of him?" I responded with a "yes" and he asked me if I had done any criminal work, to which I smiled and told him no, it was only my second time in a courtroom. He then questioned/instructed me that if I were to be chosen as a juror that I should rely only on the facts as they are presented and not on any of my own legal knowledge. I replied that I understood and he moved onto the next juror. He finished with the other jurors and the perempts began. The clerk then read the juror numbers that were chosen, which didn't include me (big surprise! who wants a lawyer influencing jurors!) so I was given my summons back and headed back down to the jury pool about 11:30. They told me I could go out for lunch but to be back at 1 so I went home and played with Charlton for an hour.
When I returned, I gave them my summons and was given fresh questionnaires to fill out. Shortly thereafter, I was called out in the first group and given number 19 of 30. This was for a civil trial involving a slip-and-fall at the Turf Club in Philadelphia, an off-track betting club. The plaintiff in this case was deceased from causes unrelated to the fall and his estate was bringing the claim. Once we were seated we were given a very serious lecture about the importance of our judicial system and the rule or law, including the role of the jury in that system. The meaning of hardship was explained to us in terms that I interpreted as meaning that unless someone had a doctor's note saying that their mom had 24 hours to live, they would not be dismissed for hardship. Finally, we were asked as a group if anyone had a hardship and only one person raised his hand, the radiologist that I mentioned earlier. I noticed the guy whose lady's birthday it was sat quiet as a mouse.
Everything was the same except in a civil case in Phila each juror is questioned privately in a room with the attorneys and the court clerk. The defense attorney started, he asked, "You are an attorney? Have you ever been involved in courtroom work or sued anyone?" I gave him the same answer as before which was no. He also asked about my questionnaire where I marked that someone in my family was a medical professional, which I responded that my father-in-law was a surgeon. He then asked if I would have any problem rendering a verdict in favor of a deceased plaintiff, which I responded with what I guess was an emphatic no because they all smiled. As we all know, I'm not one to hide my emotions and it is true that I was a little put off that he would dare question my objectivity, so I guess my answer came to a little more passionate than I anticipated. While I may not be practicing, I do proudly consider myself an officer of the court! The defense attorney just smiled and said he had no questions.
After all 30 the jurors were questioned, there were 17 of us left. The court clerk then came out and told us that their had been a mistake, that the court thought they only needed 8 jurors and 4 alternates, which meant they only needed a minimum of 16 for the jury pool. However, the case needed 12 jurors and no alternates which mean they needed 20 people for the jury selection so they would have to do more selection tomorrow. The case was put off a day and we were told to come back on Tues at 11, that they would do the perempts quickly and thereafter the trial would begin.
I came back the next day and was surprised when I was chosen as a juror. I guess the attorneys thought I would either be fair or on their respective sides. I was pretty excited about it. I love this kind of stuff and was interested to watch my fellow jurors, the attorneys, the judge, witnesses and court proceedings. Instead of starting the trial, however, it was put off another day because of problems with the witness so we did not begin until Wednesday.
Stay tuned for Jury Duty Part II - The Trial
No comments:
Post a Comment