As the prosecution reminded – and verified – with each potential juror during the panel process, this isn’t like the media portrays a trial. To be fair, the jury part may be – that’s not usually the focus – but the trial I sat through as a juror was devoid of the theatrics you expect to see on screen.
As each group of four was empaneled, they were sent to the jury deliberation room, and given a notebook and pen for use during the trial. (All notes are disposed of afterwards.) I was near the end of the selection process, so only sat for a short while in the deliberation room while the two alternates were selected. Except for during deliberation, the time in the deliberation room was mostly sit and wait, wondering when we’d be summoned back to the courtroom.
The trial process started as soon as the entire jury was selected, with the bailiff instructing us on the process: we lined up in a particular order based on when in the process we were selected, written on the white board for the first couple days; the bailiff asked everyone to stand while the jury entered; the back row of the jury box entered first and everyone remained standing until the bailiff announced that everyone could sit down. (Amusingly, he consistently made that announcement when the front row alternate had just set foot in the jury box; she usually wasn’t in front of her chair yet.)
Before the trial started and at the end of each day, the judge told the jury not to seek out any information relating to this trial online or in the news. Each morning, he verified that none of us had deliberately or accidentally been exposed to related information. This is an important point in each trial, as the jury’s decision is based only on the evidence presented by the prosecution and defense.
The prosecution and then the defense presented their opening statements to the jury, then rolled right into calling the prosecution’s witnesses. It’s important to note that the opening and closing statements do not constitute evidence; these are the prosecution and defense attorneys’ summaries and opinions. I think this is one of the key spots that media highlights in on screen trials, for the impassioned presentation, even though it’s less important that the witness testimony.
At the end of each day, the judge stopped the questioning and released everyone with a specific time to return the next morning. In the deliberation room, the bailiff then clarified that we should arrive 30 minutes prior to that, gathering in the jury room so we could come upstairs, set our personal belongings in the deliberation room, and reclaim our notepads (they never leave the building). We were escorted outside by an officer to avoid any accidental interactions with the defendant, witnesses, or the attorneys.
When we arrived on the second day, we were given a sheet to submit our lunch order; lunches would be served in the jury (as opposed to the deliberation) room each day unless we were deliberating at lunch time. For our trial, the prosecution witnesses were called on the second day, with the defense attorney cross-examining each one as needed, and the prosecution asking follow-up questions. The defense witnesses were called on the morning of the third day, reversing the process with the prosecution cross-examining. That afternoon, rebuttal witnesses were called and questioned, again with the prosecution calling their witnesses first.
On the fourth and final days, the jury walked into a full courtroom – all of the witnesses were now allowed in the audience – and heard the closing statements. We first listened to one of the prosecuting attorneys, who walked through the jury instructions, spelling out each charge and emphasizing which part of the testimony supported that charge. The defense attorney presented his closing statement, followed by a rebuttal closing statement from the other prosecuting attorney. After additional instructions from the judge (among other things, reminding us that opening and closing statements were opinion rather than evidence) and the swearing in of our bailiff, we adjourned to the deliberation room and began discussing the details – the first time we were allowed to talk about it to anyone, even among the jury – while waiting for our lunch. Our first order of business was to turn in all of our devices – our phones were allowed in the deliberation room during breaks, but not during the actual deliberation process. Then we needed to select a foreperson, who got to sort through the jury instructions and organize our deliberation process.
One interesting aspect of the jury process is that the jury is presented with two sheets of paper for each charge: one that specifies “guilty” and one “not guilty”. It’s fancier than that, of course, something like “We the jury find the defendant guilty/not guilty of [insert charge here]”, with a specific line for the foreperson to sign and lines for the other eleven jurors’ signatures.
We did not rush our process. Using the whiteboard and some paper taped to the wall (it was a small whiteboard), we summarized overall impressions of each witness and their reliability before we ever discussed the charges. We started with anonymous voting on sets of charges (there were appropriate groupings that made sense) – a guilty/not guilty vote written on a piece of paper, then read out all together to see if there were any differing opinions. We discussed the differing opinions at length, clarifying questions from our notes, then ended up tabling the issue and coming back to that particular set of charges near the end. After the first discussion, we found we were all willing to voice our opinions in that particular group and dispensed with the slower anonymous method. Each juror signed each appropriate verdict sheet for every charges as we reached a consensus on them.
Eventually we reached a consensus on all of the charges and summoned the bailiff by turning the button near the door. The bailiff then notified the judge, who summoned everyone back to the courtroom before admitting the jury. The foreperson carried the envelope with the signed and unsigned sheets with the charges. When requested by the judge, the foreperson handed that envelope to the bailiff, who passed it to the judge. The judge reviewed the sheets, did some rearranging, then handed them to the clerk to read each signed verdict sheet out loud. After all of the sheets were read, at the defense attorney’s request, the jury was polled – calling out each juror number – to confirm that we each agreed with the reported verdict.
And then we were done. The bailiff escorted the jury back to the deliberation room, we piled any pages that had been used in the notepads for their destruction, and waited while our electronic devices were retrieved. We were again escorted outside by an officer, released from further jury duty obligations for at least a year.
