On Monday morning I drove to the Kent Municipal Court where I went through a metal detector and into a courtroom where all of the prospective jurors were assembling. We were given numbers so that we could maintain some sense of anonymity—I ended up being Juror #20. There were just under 60 people in total and they randomly drew numbers to fill two groups of 20. My number was called for the second group. The first group was marched out almost immediately but my group waited about 90 minutes before they told us we could go home because our case wasn't going to start until the next morning.
I returned to the courthouse on Tuesday morning and about an hour after arriving my group was marched into another courtroom. In the courtroom was a judge, a clerk, two attorneys, the defendant, and his translator all of whom looked us over as we entered and sat down. They then drew each of our numbers at random at had us move from the right side of the courtroom to the left in that order. This is how we would be arranged for the voir dire process. The judge then gave an overview of the case which was the City of Kent versus a man who was charged with soliciting a prostitute. The judge continued by asking if anyone had any hardships that would prevent them from being able to serve up to 3 days. He asked if anyone knew himself, the attorneys, the defendant, or any of the witnesses scheduled to testify. He asked if anyone had served on a jury before. He asked if anyone had personal involvement with a crime similar to the one he had just described...and one man raised his hand... ouch!
Then it was the attorneys' turn to question us. I was only directly asked to answer one question and it was a hypothetical situation involving a nonsensical law that went something like this:
If the law stated that no one could wear a blue vest on Wednesdays, and you believed the evidence presented in the trial confirmed that the defendant had worn a blue vest on a Wednesday, would you convict them?My answer, of course, was "yes" because that is the law and it is not my place as a juror to judge the sensibility of a law. I said that I would hope that if such a nonsensical law existed that people in the legislature would be doing something to fix it. And I thought (but didn't say) that convicting someone of a stupid law like that might inspire me to personally take up the cause for getting it changed (I've since learned that the state legislature is working to make the crime in the real case much more costly). The attorneys spent a lot of time asking what we thought of police and through their questions it was clear that the defendant had been caught by some kind of undercover police sting. They also spent a long time asking people what factor non verbal communication (i.e. body language) would play in their decision as a juror. I was kind of surprised that most seemed to say it would weigh significantly in their decision making process. Had I been asked I would have said that it would have considered it but would have given it much less weight than I would actual evidence and testimony. After all, there are a lot of reasons someone can look uncomfortable besides being dishonest... How about simply being anxious or shy at having all of the attention directed at them?
In the end, I wasn't among the six people selected. I've long believed that I would never be selected because I wouldn't fall within the demographic of people that would be perceived as tolerable to both the Defense and the Prosecution. I was completely excused on Wednesday and was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to participate in a trial. But I was also a bit relieved that I didn't have to be the one potentially affirming someone's guilt. I wasn't too surprised by the people they chose to be on the jury for which I was considered, other than almost all had expressed that body language would weigh heavily on their decision making process. But you'll probably find that is the prevailing opinion amongst most people... after all, politicians wouldn't spend millions of dollars on negative television ads if people weren't easily influenced by factually questionable drivel ;)
