Static Zombie

Have Some Madeira, Voir Dire

I spent three days last week on jury duty. I answered the call out of a sense of civic responsibility, a genuine curiosity about how a real courtroom works, and the understanding that failure to appear when summoned is a felony.

Elevator Life

The juror assembly room on the twelfth floor of the Seattle Justice Center is a bright, airy place with free wireless access (woohoo!) and enormous windows offering panoramic views of the city. I was surprised to find a quirky piece of art mounted in the corner of one wall of the room-- a panel of elevator call buttons which, when pressed, become an animated game of Life. Not the sort of thing one expects to find in a jury room, but my preconceived view of city government was reaffirmed when I discovered that the artwork was unplugged. In my grand gesture of support for the arts, I plugged it in. Take that, faceless government bureaucracy!

From my vantage point overlooking the south side of downtown, I realized I wasn't far from Salumi. When we were dismissed for lunch, my destination was clear. Salumi, run by Food Network chef Mario Batali's father, is a mecca for out-of-town foodies visiting Seattle and a popular lunch venue for nearby locals. This was my second trip, the first having been last year when "actor Dave" (as distinguished from "doctor Dave", "pirate Dave", and "Sharry Dave" in Peter/gf conversation) visited and we staged an informal Salumi/Paseo sandwich-off. I opted for their porchetta (roast pork stuffed with sausage meat and spices), which was sensational-- especially with the crusty bread slathered in garlicky olive oil. I felt sorry for the jurors who had to sit next to me after that, but only fleetingly. Sacrifices must be made in the name of gastronomy.

After lunch my name got called and I was ushered into a courtroom for the voir dire process, which was both fascinating and a lot of fun. During voir dire, each attorney has twenty minutes to question the jurors in an effort to determine who is most likely to favor their side of the case. In reality, the lawyers use this time to lay some foundation for their case outside the rules of evidence. The prosecution asked jurors to tell her what caused car accidents, for example, while the defense asked who the most guilty person in the room was. This was the only part of the trial where jurors got to actively engage with the attorneys. What a blast! It felt in many ways like being on a game show, but without any prizes ("Congratulations, juror #2! For giving answers that make you sound like an asset to both sides of the case, you've won the right to come back tomorrow and sit on the jury!").

Jurors can be dismissed "for cause" (none were), and both attorneys can execute peremptory challenges and dismiss up to three jurors for no reason whatsoever. I expected to be dismissed at this stage, since I was one of only two jurors who said they didn't drink alcohol, but they kept me and kicked the other juror (who said she didn't drink because she tends to eat too much and smoke too much, and she was afraid she'd drink too much also so decided not to drink at all). The defense seemed to like that I'm an engineer, perhaps hoping I'd find a flaw in the prosecution's case and hold them to their burden of proof instead of making an emotional decision.

The case itself took two days to present to us and was ultimately a no-brainer. The defendant was being charged with DUI and negligent driving, and had a blood alcohol level of .236-- almost triple the legal limit of .08. Once the breath test got admitted into evidence, we really had no choice. We went through each condition of the charge line by line and considered them all carefully, but returned a verdict of guilty in ninety minutes. The case seemed clear cut to us and we were surprised the defendant didn't plead out, but he may have had no choice. If a plea was even offered, it might have meant losing his license and by extension one or more of his three jobs. Faced with that possibility, taking it to trial might have seemed his only option. We just don't know.

I loved the experience, which was educational and satisying. It felt good to be part of the process, even if it seemed like more efficiencies could have been built into the system to make things happen more swiftly.

Posted by Peter at January 18, 2007 03:18 PM