Jury Duty (again)
As some of you may remember, I had jury duty about 4 years ago. Actually, it was one of the very first things I wrote about in this journal. Well guess what? I was recently called for jury duty again! Except this time, instead of a federal trial at the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, it was a state trial at the Prince George's County District Court. How less exciting.
I got to see the county seat of our fair county, which amazingly has a population of only 648! It was quite a reminder that PG used to be a very rural area until the expansion of the federal government caused a population explosion around the District.
Anyway, the trial was actually extremely similar to my last time as a juror: a guy was charged with carrying a handgun and intending to deal drugs. Except this time there was only one guy involved, and the drug was marijuana.
There was some pretty shoddy police work (the only officer who actually saw the defendant with the drugs and gun didn't write a report to that effect), and the prosecuting attorney was either extremely new, or rather incompetent. He kept tripping over his words, jumping all over the place with questioning and evidence, and was generally shown up by the very slick defense lawyer. One slip-up he made multiple times was that the original warrant for the defendant's arrest was for sexual assault, not drugs. This revelation was repeatedly objected to by the defense attorney, and the judge instructed us that we weren't supposed to take this sexual assault charge into account, only that the original warrant wasn't for drugs.
And no, I don't think the prosecutor was doing it on purpose, I believe he was really just that bad.
It was a quick trial. The longest part was going through the selection process. For those who've never been on a jury, there's a process called "voir dire" where some number of possible jurors (more than 12) are called before the judge and the attorney and together they try to cobble together 12 people (plus some number of alternates) to serve on the jury. I was one of about 57 people at the beginning, and became on of the final 12 mostly by virtue of having a low candidate number (5). Basically, after they weeded out everybody who had potential conflicts, they just took the 13 lowest numbered people left (12 jurors + one alternate). This finally finished at about 1pm on Monday. Then we went to lunch and came back at 2. The prosecutor presented his case until about 4pm, then rested.
We came back at 9am the next day. The judge and attorneys were ready for us at 10:30. We filed into the courtroom, the defense attorney rose and immediately said that the defense rests! He thought he had made his case through his cross examination (and like I said, he was a really slick lawyer), but I also think he knew that he didn't have a good chance. So back we went to deliberate for about 2 hours. Because the best witness had been a little unreliable, some people were wary of convicting the defendant of the gun charge. But they were convinced that him having not carried the gun was beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the end, since the drugs and the gun were found on the ground outside the window that the defendant had jumped out of (and subsequently broke his arm), we the jury were able to find him guilty of his charges.
After the end of the trial on Tuesday, I searched Google for the defendant's name on a whim, when much to my surprise I find out that he's an accused child rapist! That was the "sexual assault" case that was alluded to during the trial, and why the officer who witnessed the drugs and gun (who was revealed to us as a Special Victims Unit officer) didn't bother putting something as mundane as marijuana in his report. We saw no evidence whatsoever so I can't make any definitive statements about it. But still, that's horrible! I'm glad I didn't have to sit on that case!
We'll see if in another 3-4 years I get another summons for jury duty. Maybe I'll start shooting for a record...
I got to see the county seat of our fair county, which amazingly has a population of only 648! It was quite a reminder that PG used to be a very rural area until the expansion of the federal government caused a population explosion around the District.
Anyway, the trial was actually extremely similar to my last time as a juror: a guy was charged with carrying a handgun and intending to deal drugs. Except this time there was only one guy involved, and the drug was marijuana.
There was some pretty shoddy police work (the only officer who actually saw the defendant with the drugs and gun didn't write a report to that effect), and the prosecuting attorney was either extremely new, or rather incompetent. He kept tripping over his words, jumping all over the place with questioning and evidence, and was generally shown up by the very slick defense lawyer. One slip-up he made multiple times was that the original warrant for the defendant's arrest was for sexual assault, not drugs. This revelation was repeatedly objected to by the defense attorney, and the judge instructed us that we weren't supposed to take this sexual assault charge into account, only that the original warrant wasn't for drugs.
And no, I don't think the prosecutor was doing it on purpose, I believe he was really just that bad.
It was a quick trial. The longest part was going through the selection process. For those who've never been on a jury, there's a process called "voir dire" where some number of possible jurors (more than 12) are called before the judge and the attorney and together they try to cobble together 12 people (plus some number of alternates) to serve on the jury. I was one of about 57 people at the beginning, and became on of the final 12 mostly by virtue of having a low candidate number (5). Basically, after they weeded out everybody who had potential conflicts, they just took the 13 lowest numbered people left (12 jurors + one alternate). This finally finished at about 1pm on Monday. Then we went to lunch and came back at 2. The prosecutor presented his case until about 4pm, then rested.
We came back at 9am the next day. The judge and attorneys were ready for us at 10:30. We filed into the courtroom, the defense attorney rose and immediately said that the defense rests! He thought he had made his case through his cross examination (and like I said, he was a really slick lawyer), but I also think he knew that he didn't have a good chance. So back we went to deliberate for about 2 hours. Because the best witness had been a little unreliable, some people were wary of convicting the defendant of the gun charge. But they were convinced that him having not carried the gun was beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the end, since the drugs and the gun were found on the ground outside the window that the defendant had jumped out of (and subsequently broke his arm), we the jury were able to find him guilty of his charges.
After the end of the trial on Tuesday, I searched Google for the defendant's name on a whim, when much to my surprise I find out that he's an accused child rapist! That was the "sexual assault" case that was alluded to during the trial, and why the officer who witnessed the drugs and gun (who was revealed to us as a Special Victims Unit officer) didn't bother putting something as mundane as marijuana in his report. We saw no evidence whatsoever so I can't make any definitive statements about it. But still, that's horrible! I'm glad I didn't have to sit on that case!
We'll see if in another 3-4 years I get another summons for jury duty. Maybe I'll start shooting for a record...