Steaming Turd

I know I’m supposed to have washed my hands of the case, but I couldn’t resist. Now that I’m allowed to dig around for info on teh intarweb related to the case, I visited the county court’s website and did a case search for the defendant in the case I was on. Turns out the guy has several felony convictions as a result of plea deals that landed him in jail for a good chunk of the ’90s. His actions which led to the case I served on were far more serious, though - his worst offense in the past was a third degree felony, and we convicted him of two first-degree felonies (along with an extra third-degree one). He also has had a history of skipping out on court appearances - he’s blown his bond in nearly every case he was charged in.

In my earlier post, I said I didn’t want to know what the next sentence will be. But the more I find out about this guy’s past,* the fewer of those nagging unreasonable doubts I have about the case, and I’ll be checking back there every few weeks or so to see what the outcome is.

* We didn’t get to hear about the defendant’s checkered past during the trial for a very, very good reason: from my statement above, had I known about his past at any point during the trial, my fairness would have been tainted. For myself, I’m glad I followed those instructions fully, because I know we gave the guy a fair shake.

I was reading a message board today, in a post about the Mohammed cartoons and the resulting fallout, when a thought occurred to me.

Han Solo: It’s not wise to offend a Muslim.
C-3PO: But sir, nobody ever worries about offending a Christian.
Han Solo: That’s cause a Christian don’t blow up your embassies, skyscrapers, buses, trains, and loved ones when they’re offended. Muslims have been known to do that.
C-3PO: Artoo, I suggest a new strategy: Let the Muslims win.

No apologies for the inherent political incorrectness.

Well, we’re done. I’m done. It’s all done, and it’s like a load of bricks off my chest.

I’ve decided that I don’t want to give details about the case on my weblog, due to the nature of the case. Suffice to say that we deliberated for about four and a half hours, and convicted the defendant on three out of the four charges. We didn’t consider the possible sentence that could be imposed when we were deliberating (we were instructed not to, in fact), but after the fact, I perused through the Ohio Revised Code. From what I can gather, it’s possible that the defendant will serve anywhere from three years to a life sentence depending on other factors the jury didn’t decide, but I suspect that the term will be much more than just three years. To be honest, though, I don’t think I want to know what the sentence ends up being.

Once we finished signing the verdict sheets, we all felt that we had made the right decision in terms of our verdict. After the verdict was read, the judge indicated that he believed we had made the right decision, and I found that to be very reassuring. Even still, it’s heartwrenching to have to do that, and I feel nothing but sympathy for the defendant’s family.

I met a lot of good people while I was there, and I couldn’t have asked with a better group of people to have worked with on our jury. They turned an immensely stressful situation into something much better.

Did I enjoy serving on a jury? No… as I’ve said before, it’s a very, very stressful situation. Am I glad I did, though? Yes, definitely. The participation of citizens on a jury is one of three cases where we get to participate directly in the workings of our government (the other two being voting and serving on a grand jury), and I think it makes my life a bit more complete to have had this opportunity.

If I were called to serve again, I wouldn’t shy away from it… but if I never see another jury duty summons arrive in the mail, I won’t complain. After all, there are plenty of other people who deserve a chance to participate in our government as well.

Edit: By the way, the judge revealed to us that the reason for the one-day delay was that one of the participants in the trial (he didn’t say who) had a scheduled appearance in federal court on Wednesday.

I really don’t have a lot I can share today, except that I’m heading back downtown tomorrow to help wrap things up. The plus side is that apparently, there’s little to no chance of getting placed on another jury for a new trial on Friday, so after tomorrow I should be done.

On a side note, I learned today while I was on the bus that they’re rerouting a bunch of buses that use Euclid between the Pubic Square and East 18th, because apparently Cleveland is (mis)fortunate enough to get part of Spiderman 3 filmed on our lovely city streets. Actually, the section of Euclid in question is pretty nice, including the theater district and other nifty buildings like the Wyndham Hotel. One of my fellow jurors said that Cleveland was apparently in competition with Detroit for this dubious honor.

Not a whole lot to report today. But, miracle of miracles, the judge told us (without specifying the reason why) that we could take tomorrow off. Guess that means I’ll be able to make it to lab meeting after all. ;P

On a side note, I got the worst night’s sleep last night. I tossed and turned, and as soon as I nodded off, some random thought vaguely jury-related would pop into my head and keep me from actually getting any sleep. Oddly enough, a couple other people on our jury mentioned that they had a lot of trouble sleeping last night as well, and most of us indicated that when we got home yesterday, we were totally beat. I think it’s probably stress, which is odd, because I didn’t feel that stressed out yesterday while I was there. I guess it kind of sneaks up on you.

So anyway, the first day of jury duty has come and gone. I got downtown a bit past 7:30am, went into the Justice Center, went through the metal detector next to a really, really, really bored-looking security guard (and it was only 7:30am!), and headed up to the fourth floor to see a gigantic line of new potential jurors.

I went to the back of the line, and stood for about ten minutes as more and more people came in and saw the line. It was amusing to watch their faces as they went from near the start of the line (near the elevator) down the hall and realized just how many people were in that line. Anyway, about ten till eight, they moved the line into another hallway, where they separated us into two halves of the alphabet for us to turn in our summonses. From there, we - 200+ strong - went into the jury waiting area, a really big room full of chairs. Most of the chairs are arranged auditorium-style so that we could watch an orientation video that explains our civic duty, etc., etc. The basics of how to report in and where to go were explained, and then we were told to wait in that room until our name was called over the intercom.

The wait began at 9:30am.

At 11:00am, my name was called, and I was sent (along with 21 other people) up to the 23rd floor for a trial. (The view is great from up there!) Now, here’s where I can’t be candid about what went on anymore. Suffice to say, I ended up not being dismissed, so for the next couple of days I’m sitting on an actual jury. Voir dire (i.e., jury selection) was over by 3pm, and we went right into the trial itself.

Anyway, the people there do what they can to make things more comfortable. The chairs in the courtroom are pretty nicely padded swivel chairs, bolted to the floor so you don’t accidentally ram the person’s knees behind you. The jury deliberation room - where the jury goes anytime there are proceedings in the courtroom that the jury needs to be excused for - is fairly small, but the chairs there are comfortable as well.

All sorts of people are there serving on juries. But one thing I noticed was that everyone was very friendly to everyone else, probably in part because they were cast into a situation together that they didn’t expect or originally plan for. Actually, it reminds me of my freshman year at Case, where nearly the entire dorm was freshmen, and because of that, many of us became friends very quickly.

On a side note - I had taken the bus downtown, just to avoid parking madness. I’m glad I did. The bus goes from nearly my front door to a block away from the Justice Center (meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice…), and lots of people from the outer reaches of the county had driven in. But to top things off, this afternoon, as the bus was cruising down Euclid, we went past an empty lot with some maybe four-foot-tall wooden fenceposts along the sidewalk. Perched atop one of these was a hawk, just kind of hanging out there. (And yes, I saw it move, so I know it wasn’t fake!)

…jury duty.

I’ve never been before (and, really, most people haven’t either), so this should be an interesting experience. I plan on writing a few posts about it here, though I’m pretty sure I won’t be allowed to post about specific cases until the trial is over. What I plan to do is write about it now, so it’ll be relatively fresh in my mind, but keep it unpublished until afterwards. I’ll go ahead and post the details about the jury selection process not relevant to a case. If nothing else, it should be helpful for letting county residents know what to expect if they get called to duty.

Here’s hoping I don’t end up on the next OJ trial.

P.S. Yes, I got up before 6 am. Ugh.

Saw this animated avatar on a message board recently: