Jury Duty: Part 2 (Industry Protocol)
Most of us have been called up for jury duty at some point. First there's the ominous letter in the mail, then the cavalcade of fool-proof methods for getting out of it. Finally, as the dreaded date arrives, there are the daily phone calls (or now, checking the website) and then at last, in my case, going in.
And waiting.
Then, into the courtroom - something new, at least. One thing I hadn't considered was the requirement (or at least benefit) for a judge to be a good public speaker. This one (Griffin Bonini) certainly was, and after about five minutes it became clear what his angle was - to discourage people from trying to squirm out of it. Easier, really, to stem a collapsing dam with a wheelbarrel full of hamsters, but I had to admire the judge's artistry with it. By the end, he offered a carrot - come back in a couple of days, and you can skip the afternoon march of public pleas for release on account of hardship.
Needless to say, I had no hardship excuse - my work pays for everything but the most expansive of trials, so I opted for the carrot and came back for the selection proper.
THE SELECTION
Surprisingly (at least to me) the process seems to depend a great deal more on the whims of the judge than any external process or system. In our case, once in the courtroom, a set of twenty-four names were called up, people marched up. Questions were asked, and from the nature of the questions and few brief remarks, it became fairly clear that we were looking at some kind of drunk driving fatality, though details were thin. The judge would dismiss people for cause (that is, gross bias, or other issues like extreme lack of language skills), then the attorneys would question people, then huddle with the judge to convince him to dismiss additional people for cause.
I was actually surprised how tenacious the judge was - "I understand your English isn't the best, but you passed the English requirement test for citizenship? So, you should be sufficiently equipped for this." And, "Everybody has biases, and I'm not expecting you to not have any. In fact, I want you to bring your personal experiences to the jury. All I ask is, are you capable of following the jury instructions and considering things objectively?"
In other words, "Are you an idiot?"
After a day or two of this, I wound up hanging out with a former Cryptic employee, Ian Noble. I remember looking at him and thinking that he looked awfully familiar, but I admit it took me a while to put it together. As it was, he and I and a woman named Erin wound up hanging out at lunch and during break. As people were dismissed, we started taking bets as to which of us would be called up.
As it turned out - we all were.
Erin and I were in the first batch. Ian wound up escaping being an alternate juror by exactly one juror. The judge excused Erin, and that left me.
Now, those of you who know me well know that there are very few things that will stop my brain from going a hundred miles an hour, and jury selection was no exception. Planning, plotting, watching carefully - it all factored in. I actually never planned to try to get out of it (even though by that point it was pretty clear the kinds of things that worked and the kinds of things that didn't). I vote, which is a privilege, so when the other side of the coin flips - the responsibility - I wasn't inclined to shirk it.
If you want to get kicked off a jury so fast it will make your head spin, mention that you philosophically support the concept of the jury being the ultimate check on unjust laws. In other words, jury nullification. There's a bit of hypocrisy here as well; in 1965 the Supreme Court has upheld the ability of the jury to de facto rule on the justness of the law - that is, jury nullification. However, the judge is under no obligation to mention this, and can in fact imply, bully, and pull from a jury at his sole discretion without recourse any juror he even suspects knows this.
That being said, many of the questions were problematic, and some were inherently silly. Could you disregard any of your own expert-ish training in favor of whatever biased expert was dragged up to the stand? (This became a real problem later as two of the expert witnesses' math was just plain wrong.) Could you follow the law, no matter what your personal beliefs were...but remember that you're expected to bring your personal beliefs to the deliberation process as well.
Certain patterns became very clear as well; whatever the judge or attorneys said (and I think most was intended to discourage other people from pushing their luck), nobody with poor English was kept on the jury. If you were a manager and they caught that that is what you were, you would get pulled. If you were an engineer, you were almost instantly gone.
The frequent assumption that juries are made up of uneducated people, is, btw, turns out to not be factual. I looked up some studies on this, and it turns out that juries have on average a higher level of education than the national average. This may have more to do with the bias for predominantly white juries where the statistical average in this area is going to have a higher level of formal education - the initial cross-section was very representative of Santa Clara County, but by the time the prosecutor's peremptory challenges were expended, of the final twelve jurors and three alternates something like twelve or thirteen were white middle class, managers and well educated. In theory, attorneys cannot dismiss someone for the demographic fact that they were not white, but so long as they can find some justification, apparently they are generally in the clear. I suspect it's more closely scrutinized when the defendant isn't white - in this case, the defendant was, but demographic selection was still blatantly obviously happening.
Then, at last, it was my turn.
Judge: "For the record, what is your profession?"
Me: "Lead designer for a video game."
Judge: "What kind of games?"
Me: "Massively Multiplayer Games. Basically, like World of Warcraft."
Court Reporter: "Could you spell that, please?"
Me: (spells it)
Then, in the middle of it:
Judge: "Yeah, my character is way better looking than I am in real life."
I was doomed. Sure enough, when the defense attorney started asking questions, it just got worse.
Pointer: "So, this has nothing to do with the case, but do you know of a way to get a kid to stop playing video games?"
Me: "My recommendation would be lock him in a room with no exits or electricity and a wireless damper. Shove food under the door. Repeat until he's dead of old age."
Pointer: "Thank you."
Me: "That's industry protocol."
My fate was sealed. I became Juror #9.
And waiting.
Then, into the courtroom - something new, at least. One thing I hadn't considered was the requirement (or at least benefit) for a judge to be a good public speaker. This one (Griffin Bonini) certainly was, and after about five minutes it became clear what his angle was - to discourage people from trying to squirm out of it. Easier, really, to stem a collapsing dam with a wheelbarrel full of hamsters, but I had to admire the judge's artistry with it. By the end, he offered a carrot - come back in a couple of days, and you can skip the afternoon march of public pleas for release on account of hardship.
Needless to say, I had no hardship excuse - my work pays for everything but the most expansive of trials, so I opted for the carrot and came back for the selection proper.
THE SELECTION
Surprisingly (at least to me) the process seems to depend a great deal more on the whims of the judge than any external process or system. In our case, once in the courtroom, a set of twenty-four names were called up, people marched up. Questions were asked, and from the nature of the questions and few brief remarks, it became fairly clear that we were looking at some kind of drunk driving fatality, though details were thin. The judge would dismiss people for cause (that is, gross bias, or other issues like extreme lack of language skills), then the attorneys would question people, then huddle with the judge to convince him to dismiss additional people for cause.
I was actually surprised how tenacious the judge was - "I understand your English isn't the best, but you passed the English requirement test for citizenship? So, you should be sufficiently equipped for this." And, "Everybody has biases, and I'm not expecting you to not have any. In fact, I want you to bring your personal experiences to the jury. All I ask is, are you capable of following the jury instructions and considering things objectively?"
In other words, "Are you an idiot?"
After a day or two of this, I wound up hanging out with a former Cryptic employee, Ian Noble. I remember looking at him and thinking that he looked awfully familiar, but I admit it took me a while to put it together. As it was, he and I and a woman named Erin wound up hanging out at lunch and during break. As people were dismissed, we started taking bets as to which of us would be called up.
As it turned out - we all were.
Erin and I were in the first batch. Ian wound up escaping being an alternate juror by exactly one juror. The judge excused Erin, and that left me.
Now, those of you who know me well know that there are very few things that will stop my brain from going a hundred miles an hour, and jury selection was no exception. Planning, plotting, watching carefully - it all factored in. I actually never planned to try to get out of it (even though by that point it was pretty clear the kinds of things that worked and the kinds of things that didn't). I vote, which is a privilege, so when the other side of the coin flips - the responsibility - I wasn't inclined to shirk it.
If you want to get kicked off a jury so fast it will make your head spin, mention that you philosophically support the concept of the jury being the ultimate check on unjust laws. In other words, jury nullification. There's a bit of hypocrisy here as well; in 1965 the Supreme Court has upheld the ability of the jury to de facto rule on the justness of the law - that is, jury nullification. However, the judge is under no obligation to mention this, and can in fact imply, bully, and pull from a jury at his sole discretion without recourse any juror he even suspects knows this.
That being said, many of the questions were problematic, and some were inherently silly. Could you disregard any of your own expert-ish training in favor of whatever biased expert was dragged up to the stand? (This became a real problem later as two of the expert witnesses' math was just plain wrong.) Could you follow the law, no matter what your personal beliefs were...but remember that you're expected to bring your personal beliefs to the deliberation process as well.
Certain patterns became very clear as well; whatever the judge or attorneys said (and I think most was intended to discourage other people from pushing their luck), nobody with poor English was kept on the jury. If you were a manager and they caught that that is what you were, you would get pulled. If you were an engineer, you were almost instantly gone.
The frequent assumption that juries are made up of uneducated people, is, btw, turns out to not be factual. I looked up some studies on this, and it turns out that juries have on average a higher level of education than the national average. This may have more to do with the bias for predominantly white juries where the statistical average in this area is going to have a higher level of formal education - the initial cross-section was very representative of Santa Clara County, but by the time the prosecutor's peremptory challenges were expended, of the final twelve jurors and three alternates something like twelve or thirteen were white middle class, managers and well educated. In theory, attorneys cannot dismiss someone for the demographic fact that they were not white, but so long as they can find some justification, apparently they are generally in the clear. I suspect it's more closely scrutinized when the defendant isn't white - in this case, the defendant was, but demographic selection was still blatantly obviously happening.
Then, at last, it was my turn.
Judge: "For the record, what is your profession?"
Me: "Lead designer for a video game."
Judge: "What kind of games?"
Me: "Massively Multiplayer Games. Basically, like World of Warcraft."
Court Reporter: "Could you spell that, please?"
Me: (spells it)
Then, in the middle of it:
Judge: "Yeah, my character is way better looking than I am in real life."
I was doomed. Sure enough, when the defense attorney started asking questions, it just got worse.
Pointer: "So, this has nothing to do with the case, but do you know of a way to get a kid to stop playing video games?"
Me: "My recommendation would be lock him in a room with no exits or electricity and a wireless damper. Shove food under the door. Repeat until he's dead of old age."
Pointer: "Thank you."
Me: "That's industry protocol."
My fate was sealed. I became Juror #9.