So it ended this morning, about twenty minutes shy of the lunch break. The judge turned the peremptory challenge to the defense, and the defense thanked me for my service and excused me from the jury.
It started about a week and a half ago. I had a jury duty summons, so I drove on down to Hayward, figuring that I'd sit for a while and probably not even get called. There was the traffic, then the parking, then the juror orientation video (fourteen minutes of why we should all be proud to participate in the democratic society by serving on a jury), then the twenty minutes of orientation speech (mainly concerned with parking regulations and why you shouldn't kick the vending machines in the jury assembly room).
After that, they called a whole bunch of us down to the courtroom. They called more of us than I was expecting, but that wasn't what tipped me off that this wasn't just a regular trial. What tipped me off was the television news crew in the corner, filming the defendants as they watched us come in. I was seated up near the front, behind a reporter, and while everyone was getting settled I worked on reading over the reporter's shoulder to try and figure out what was going on. He was flipping pages in a notebook, so I mostly couldn't make anything out, but I caught the word "murder" and started to get nervous.
I figured it out somewhere during the judge's explanation of the case--the charges that he read to us included not only murder (and lesser included counts) but also hate-crimes charges. The nineteen-page questionnaire that they had us all fill out confirmed it: the trial I'd been called for was the Gwen Araujo murder trial.
So, yeah, very sincere apologies to everyone who's had to deal with me in the last week and a half, because I've been freaked out and distracted. Clearly I was never going to actually be a juror, for all of the obvious reasons and then some. But it took a week and a half to actually excuse me, a week and a half in which I've been thinking about this almost obsessively, swinging back and forth between "I really want to be on this jury" and "I couldn't possibly handle being on this jury."
But now I can talk about it. So plan on some more talking, as soon as I sort out my thoughts.
Posted by Susan at March 25, 2004 08:23 PM!! I'm glad you didn't have to serve on that case, Susan.
Posted by: Heather Shaw at March 26, 2004 05:11 PMWow.
...It's a little unclear to me from the article you linked to: were they challenging any prospective juror who answered yes to the questions about knowing any GLBT people or having seen _Boys Don't Cry_? If so, does that mean the entire jury will consist of people who've never knowingly met a transgendered person?
Posted by: Jed at March 26, 2004 06:26 PMI didn't notice them specifically removing people who had seen the movie. Actually, though, the questionnaire didn't ask about "Boys Don't Cry" specifically. it asked if we'd ever seen any movie or dramatic presentation depicting violent acts against transgendered persons.
But yeah, I'm glad I'm not on the jury. I don't think I was ever likely to be, though. And I get the distinct impression that the defense lawyers are trying to remove anyone who has close friends or family members who are not only transgendered, but gay.
Posted by: Susan at March 26, 2004 07:05 PMOh my. Susan, I'm really glad you don't have to go through the jury process on that trial -- and sorry about the week of queasy back-and-forth feelings.
Posted by: Gwenda B. at March 26, 2004 10:18 PMDepending on what the juror pool in that area is like, it's possible that the defense team wouldn't have enough peremptory challenges to exclude everyone who has a gay friend.
I served on a jury once. What I learned was that you really don't want to have your fate decided by the people who generally wind up on juries. At one point, after the prosecution had presented its case, we jurors were sent to the deliberation room while the lawyers discussed a motion with the judge. While we were there, one of the jurors said, "So, are we supposed to decide now?" I told her, "No, we still have to hear the defense's case." She said, "Ahh."
Posted by: Ted at March 28, 2004 04:45 AMIt's a scary thing. In a case where it's obvious that at least one of the defendants did commit the crime, and they can't argue innocence, what's left for the defense is to choose jurors who might conclude that this murder wasn't all that terrible an act, or who might have sympathy for the motives. I suppose this can be seen as fairness, but in effect it's also kind of monstrous.
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