Day Five

We begin at 1:30. In order to get to the courthouse today, my wife has drop me off around 8 in the morning. I retire to the jury assembly room and watch 250+ lucky people file in for this week's jury service. The Undersheriff says the same jokes he said last week. "Five dollars a day." "That's a whole day's pay." Big laughs.

It is now 1:30. We are told that there is a rebuttal witness. The State recalled Sgt. B_____ to the stand. More testimony that didn't really have any bearing on the case was heard. Then closing arguments (summations) are heard.

This time, the defense goes first. They get to talk as long as they want about anything to get the jurors in a mood to find his client innocent. After about thirty to forty minutes, he finished. The prosecutor began his summation and got to talk to us for about thirty minutes to get us in a mood to find Mr. E____ guilty of all three charges.

Now the judge is instructing us on the laws relevant to the case. This, along with jury instructions, takes forty to fifty minutes. Now it is 4:30 and we recess until the following morning.

Day Six

It is now Tuesday morning. The Sopranos are long gone. We sit in the jury box and listen as the court clerk calls out two random jurors' names. Juror #1 is now an alternate juror. I'm hoping that she pulls out a number 5 from the wood box. Juror #3, the seventy-four year-old man with a fifteen year-old daughter, is the second alternate juror. Alternate jurors are separated from the deliberating jury during deliberations. They are brought in only if something (like an illness or heart attack or something) happens to one of the deliberating jurors.

I'm going to talk about the deliberations as vaguely as possible.

We begin our deliberations and come to a verdict on one charge after two hours. Another charge takes only one hour.

At the beginning of deliberations, we wanted some tape to put the map up on the wall. We passed a note to the sheriff's officer outside our door to take to the judge. Forty-five minutes later, we were instructed to take our seats in the jury box. They had set up the videotape we were shown the first day of testimony. "Oh, Scotch tape," the judge said. One of the jurors then asked for some scotch. We were shown back into the jury room.

The charge that took the longest was the charge I would have wagered would take the least amount of time to decide. As a matter of fact, I was one of the few in the minority. Despite all my arguments, I couldn't convince the jurors to accept the verdict I thought was right and there was no way anyone was going to be able to convince me (or another juror). We requested to hear the testimony of two of the police officers. It took two hours for the court to locate all the testimony we requested. During that time, we didn't discuss anything because nobody was going to budge until that testimony was heard.

The testimony was read back to us. Now it is 4:45. Court recesses for the day.

Day Seven

It is now Wednesday. We arrive and are escorted into the jury deliberation room. About ninety minutes later, we reach a verdict and signal so.

We are escorted back into the courtroom. There, the judge asks if we have reached our verdict. We have. The court clerk reads off the counts and the jury foreman reads off the verdicts:

Aggravated Assault -- not guilty.
Evading -- guilty.
Resisting Arrest (fourth degree, meaning violently) -- not guilty.
Resisting Arrest (as a Disorderly Person, meaning non-violently [this charge is one we had to consider if we found the fourth degree charge to be not guilty]) -- guilty.

The court clerk then polls the jury if we agreed with the verdict. We all say "I agree". We are thanked by the judge and dismissed from our services and escorted out of the courtroom.

On the way out, I notice the prosecutor. He's not happy that we returned Not Guilty for the Aggravated Assault charge, but he's glad he got at least one Guilty out of it.

We pass by Mrs. E_____, sitting at the back of the courtroom. She whispers "Thank you" to each juror as we file out.

We all do our best to ignore her.

-Faux "one more" Pas