Jury Duty

So the other day I was summoned for jury duty in the state of Washington. I think it was the first summons I'd ever received. My work and general living situation were stable, so I didn't try to find a way out of it. I ended up being selected and then sat on the jury. I wanted to record my experience, because people seem interested and so that I can look back on it someday and remember it. We delivered a verdict today (the day I started writing this), so the trial is relatively fresh in my mind, and I want to write it down before I start forgetting it.

I want to say that this was an interesting experience, but even saying this gives me pause. It was really sobering to think about how the decisions we reached have substantial impact on the lives of the people involved. I can't help but feel it's somewhat crass to derive any positive outcome for myself from this, given that it is necessarily at someone else's expense.

And yet, it was interesting, and the overall experience was neutral or positive for me. I have to remember that what happened was a standard part of the judicial system, and I executed my role with deliberation, care, and thoughtfulness. Along those lines, out of respect for the people involved, I'm going to anonymize everything as best as I can. If you happen to deduce the specifics, please don't try to post them here.

One final note before I get started: nothing here is graphic, bloody, or especially violent. In short, the state charged that someone pushed someone else down, thus injuring their leg.

Summons and Selection Questionnaires

Let's start with the summons and selection process. I received a notice in the mail that I was summoned. At this stage there's no guarantee I'd actually sit on a jury. I had to fill out a questionnaire about my eligibility and ability to serve. For example, my wife has received several summons over the years but was excused due to--among other reasons--being the primary caretaker of our children. None of my answers gave cause for excuse, so I proceeded to the selection stage.

At this point in the process they made me aware of the plaintiff, defendant, and charges: State v. Defendant, on one count of assault in the second degree and one count of assault in the fourth degree with domestic violence designation. I will consistently refer to the defendant as Defendant or D rather than his name (yes, it was a man--this detail is relevant for later).

Whoof. My thoughts: this is a criminal trial, not a civil one. I now know the charges but don't know the specifics. What does second degree or fourth degree assault mean? Less severe by some measure than first degree, but in what ways?

I should point out that at the same time they communicated the charges, they also communicated a court order that I would hear many times right up until we delivered a verdict: I was not to seek any information about the case on my own, by talking to anyone, doing any research, etc.. That means no looking up what "assault in the second degree" might mean.

So with this light knowledge of the case and charges, the first stage of selection was another questionnaire with more directed questions, things like "Do you have strong views about law enforcement officers, either positive or negative?" and "Have you ever been the victim of a crime?" It seemed to me they were trying to suss out our potential biases.

At this point they also had us watch a pretty informative short video about jury service in Washington. Also another video making people aware of unconscious bias (something I knew about but some might not know of).

Voir Dire

A few days after the questionnaire was a round of online interviews called "voir dire". This was the first time we saw the judge, prosecuting and defense attorneys, and defendant. We received instructions from the judge. They read us quite a bit of information. Here's a few bits:

• All potential jurors must be connected at all times to the Zoom session. If anyone disconnects, they have to pause until everyone is back.
• Everyone must be in a stationary place (no cars) and have their face clearly visible with video on the whole time.
• Reiteration that we must not discuss the case with anyone.

I don't know how many jurors total were summoned at this point. I believe they held voir dire with several groups of about 20 jurors each. My group had juror numbers 50 through 75 or something like that. We entered using our real name and were renamed to have a juror number for the duration of the roughly 90 minute Zoom call.

Hilariously, some people were in their cars and had to pull over or finish getting home before we could proceed. Several people had bad connections and had to keep reconnecting. There were the usual teleconfrencing snafus like echoes and incorrect muting. The judge was extremely patient throughout all of this; clearly they have done this with this technology many times.

The main purpose of voir dire was for the prosecuting and defense attorneys to interview potential jurors. They went down the list and asked almost every person a few questions. Here's a selection of questions from what I can remember:

what my work was

software engineer

why did I answer that I had a negative bias towards law enforcement

uh, because I've read social media for the last several years

and whether I could overcome that

yes, with the dispassionate, deliberate process used in jury trials

did I want to be selected

"it would be fine". Not a single person said they wanted to, heh.

what was the nature of the crime I had been a victim of?

someone broke into my car once and stole something valuable visible on the back seat. oops

Other people had much more to say. Multiple women said they had some history with domestic violence. One was involved with domestic violence advocacy work. A huge number of people had positive views of law enforcement due to being related in some way to police officers and such. Only one or two other people had negative views, citing the same reasons as I did.

We were told that jurors could be dismissed for two reasons: either with cause (due to strong past bias or conflict of interest) or peremptorily (just because--but limited uses). All of that happened outside our view. Apparently my answers were inoffensive enough to both attorneys, because I was indeed selected.

Day 1 - prep

We were told to show up at the courthouse in a certain room at a certain time, and so I did. There was a spacious waiting area called the juror assembly room where they checked us in and we waited. There was a fridge where I could put my lunch. I kept my backpack with me. I didn't know what preparation I should do, so I brought a pen and notepad.

There were 14 of us selected (2 were alternates--I'll get to that later). Eventually the bailiff came to get us and take us to the secure area of the courthouse, to the juror's room. This room was a small conference room with a conference room table, chairs all around it, two bathrooms crammed in, a mini-fridge, whiteboard, and coffee machine. We learned that this room is locked whenever we aren't in it, so it was a good place to leave our belongings while not in the courtroom itself. Many people availed themselves of the coffee machine. I thought it was considerate to have two bathrooms. It was slightly cramped for 14 people but not uncomfortable.

We weren't allowed to leave the room without escort, and the room was just across the hallway from the courtroom. These things are probably designed to minimize the possibility of jurors overhearing other people.

We had to wait a while before we were summoned. People just did small talk. One guy was a beekeeper and regaled everyone with an endless stream of bee facts and so on. People seemed to like that, or at least it passed the time well.

Finally we were brought into the courtroom. The bailiff announced (as they did every time) "All rise for the jury!" and it's probably the first time in my life someone has had to stand as a sign of respect for me. Felt weird!

Day 1 - instructions

The courtroom was clean and spacious. The jurors' area had 14 seats exactly, swivel chairs bolted to the floor. Comfortable, with a clear view of everything.

The judge gave us a lot of verbal instruction at this point, so much that I've dedicated a whole section to it. Most of these instructions were reiterated several times over the course of the trial. First and foremost was that we were not supposed to seek any outside information about the case or any matters dealing with it. Not allowed to talk to other jurors. We could take notes in the courtroom, but the notebooks couldn't be taken out until deliberations.

Even stronger, if we found ourselves in a position if we might learn information about the case--for example, if it came on the news--we had to take action to prevent that from happening. Leave the room, change the channel, etc.. If the attorneys believe there is outside influence on the jury, they could call that grounds for a mistrial, and retrials are costly and burdensome. Likewise, we were under court order not to tell anyone about the case until its conclusion.

Let me tell you, have you ever had a teacher with a demeanor that was just commanding? Well, the judge was exactly the same but somehow more so. With the way they talked, you did not want to disobey those instructions, hoo boy.

We received instructions about the role of the defense and prosecution. The defendant is presumed to be innocent. The defendant has no burden to prove his innocence. The prosecution must prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that the defendant is guilty. A reasonable doubt is one for which a reason exists, and which a reasonable person may have. I've heard this phrasing so many times I can recite it from memory now. I think it's a good thing. It'll come up again during deliberations.

The jury will receive specific instructions at the time of deliberation as to the law, and the jury has to base its decision on the specific legal definitions we are given. We are not supposed to decide based on what the law should be, even if we disagree with it.

The jury is only allowed to make a decision based on evidence and lack of evidence. Evidence is witness testimony and exhibits permitted by the judge. Attorneys' questions are not evidence. Attorneys' opening and closing statements are not evidence. Stricken remarks and denied exbihits are not evidence, and we are not to concern ourselves with the reasons for striking/denial. Accidental comments by the judge are not evidence.

What I noticed from all this is that they've taken great effort to reduce the role of the jury to its bare minimum: follow specific instructions and consider only specific information to come to a conclusion. I think it's probably necessary to do this. With a wide sampling of people from all different backgrounds, it's impossible for us to learn enough to decide a legal matter, except within a very narrow, focused set of constraints.

We are allowed to but not required to take notes. The notes are private to us, can only be shared with other jurors during deliberation, and are destroyed after a verdict is reached. Witness testimony will never be repeated. We had to pay attention the first time and take whatever notes we need to help us remember.

Before we jump into the trial, I'm extremely glad I took notes. I have never been a good note taker, but I did my best, and I'm glad I did, because I referred to them heavily during deliberations. It's simply not possible to remember the quantity of testimony you hear, and it's valuable to be able to look back and find out what things someone said and didn't say, and how they compare to other witnesses' testimonies.

Day 1 - opening statement

I'm going to write what the prosecuting attorney said as the start of their opening statement. Be warned, it's strong language and somewhat disturbing and shocking.

"If you don't take me home now, I'll fucking kill you." - The prosecution opened with this quote by the defendant. It shocked me, because at this point I didn't know what the severity of the case was. I went very still and listened as the prosecutor gave an outline of the crime from their perspective. What I'm writing is what the prosecution alleged, not necessarily the truth.

The defendant went to his girlfriend's house (will call her GF) for a movie night type date. They had been dating off and on for several years. At some point that evening they left to go to a restaurant/bar, where they stayed for several hours. During this time they had some kind of argument, where the defendant grew increasingly loud and rude towards GF. At some point, a random woman bystander, let's call her B, approached them to check if GF was OK. The defendant was annoyed and told her to mind her own business.

Later, D and GF are leaving the bar. B is also leaving the bar and sees that D and GF are continuing to argue next to GF's car. B approaches and tells D not to talk to her that way. D walks towards B, pushes her to the ground, and yells at her. B tries to get up, and D pushes her to the ground again, at which point she feels the pain of her leg breaking. D stands over B and kicks her while she's down. During this, GF is trying to pull D away, but D pushes GF down too, causing her to scrape her elbow and leg.

D walks away from the bar at this point. B and GF make it back inside the bar and wait there until police come. Police arrest D nearby. As for the charges: assault in the second degree for pushing B to the ground and breaking her leg; assault in the fourth degree for pushing GF to the ground. I wouldn't learn the legal definitions of these until deliberations, much later.

That's it. That's the crime, according to the prosecution.

The defense chose to defer its opening statement until after the prosecution rested. And so they jumped right into calling witnesses.

Day 1 - GF testimony

The prosecution called four witnesses in total and in this order: GF, B, the doctor who treated B's leg, and one of the police officers at the scene. We heard GF and B on the first day.

Once GF got up on the stand and was sworn in, questions started flying fast. The style of notes I ended up taking were just the answers to questions, with enough information to infer the question that was asked. I put things in quotes when possible to record verbatim statements, only things that seemed especially important.

In GF's version of events, they started the evening drinking at her place, then both left to get more smokes, and instead of going home, headed to the bar. They drank for a while and eventually D started getting annoyed. GF couldn't recall what he was annoyed at.

According to GF, B came over and seemed to be trying to de-escalate, but was told to mind her own business. When they left, B came out shortly after them, saw them at the car, and came over, trying to break up the argument again.

GF testified that D pushed B down, then pushed her down again when she tried to get up. GF testified that she was grabbing D's arm and that D threw her off, causing her to fall.

GF was really unclear on how she and B made it back into the restaurant. No clear answer about whether someone helped her or what. Apparently a guy in a truck drove by and called D over, thus distracting him from the two women, and that effectively ended the incident.

Defense's cross-examination of GF focused a lot on the amount of alcohol she had drunk. It did not do an especially good job of teasing out the movements of the three of them, and the memory of the crucial moments of the incident were missing details. It doesn't help that this happened over a year ago.

The other jurors and I were also surprised that the "I'm gonna f-ing kill you" statement wasn't asked about at all. My guess is GF decided she didn't have a good enough memory about that to testify about it. Strange to leave it in the opening statement though. Did they think we wouldn't notice?

Day 1 - B testimony

B's testimony matched GF's pretty decently. She testified to approaching both inside the bar and out at the car. She also couldn't tell what their argument was, only that it seemed one-sided (that D was yelling at GF), and that's what made her feel like interfering.

She testified that D grabbed her by the neck, maybe hard enough that he could have lifted her. And then pushed her down. She testified to being pushed down a second time, and then she felt the pain in her leg. She also said she hurt her head and felt something hit her leg, but couldn't tell what caused those. She didn't see how GF fell.

She testified a decent amount about how the injury had affected her life--loss of work, need for surgery, lingering pain even to today.

As before, we the jurors didn't feel like we got a very good sense of the specific movements or actions of the three involved, and the case really hinged on it.

Day 2 - doctor testimony

The prosecution called an orthopedic surgeon to testify about the nature of B's injury. He called in via Zoom. In short, she had broken the top of her shin bone and needed surgery. The only interesting and useful piece of testimony from this was that B had told the doctor she broke her leg when she was pushed down twice. Both she and GF testified that too, and B had told her doctor that. That all lent weight to the credibility of that claim.

Day 2 - officer testimony

The prosecution called one of the officers from the scene to testify about what he saw that night. The police had arrived after it was all over. They took statements from the two women and arrested D. The officer they called wasn't even the one who arrested D.

Honestly, this guy's testimony was pretty useless. He couldn't remember any information himself and basically had to consult his written report (which he was allowed to see but we weren't). On top of that, he came in to testify after he had just worked a graveyard shift, so he was barely holding it together. I don't think we referred to his testimony at all later.

When the prosecution said "the prosection rests" after this witness, my first thought was "wait, that's it? Seriously?" I had expected to hear testimony from at least one other person who was present that night. I had expected to see a police report or statement taken from that night.

Day 2 - defense

At this point I felt the prosecution had made a pretty good case, even if missing some corroborating evidence. But they had testimony from both people who had been harmed, and it felt like a plausible situation that could have occurred. I didn't know how the defense was going to substantially change my mind.

The defense's opening statement said that their strategy was simple: they were going to put D on the stand to hear his view of events. He was pressured into going to the bar when he didn't really want to go, argued the whole evening about how he would rather be home, and here's the kicker. At the car, he told GF, "If you get in that car, you're going to fucking kill us." Check out that slight twist to the wording. Plausible, yet flips the meaning entirely.

When D got up on the stand, he calmly walked through a pretty different version of events from the evening:

1. He had gone to GF's house to stay in and catch up on shows.
2. They both drank a bunch for a while.
3. GF kept going out for smoke breaks. Eventually he got annoyed and walked to the nearby smoke shop to buy a cigar.
4. GF intercepts him at the smoke shop. They buy smokes and she takes him, somewhat reluctant, to the bar.
5. He was annoyed at how much GF was drinking and argued with her about wanting to be home instead.
6. When B approaches, he does tell her to mind her business.
7. He testified that he got annoyed with GF and left early and waited at the car to prevent GF from driving home drunk.
8. Indeed, he said that their argument outside the car was about not wanting her to drive home.
9. When B approached, he held out his arm straight in front of himself, which caused B to trip and fall over one of the cement parking stops on the ground.
10. He stood over her after she fell, but didn't take further actions, maybe only talking to her. It wasn't clear.
11. When GF grabbed his arm, he pulled away from her.
12. He left and walked to an alley between the bar and a neighboring building, where he waited until the police picked him up.

It was clear hearing D that he had been coached and had rehearsed. The questions and answers from his attorney were smooth and flowed comfortably. He was also very careful to downplay his mood. When GF brought him unwilling to the bar, he was "disappointed", not "annoyed". When GF had too much to drink he was again "disappointed". When B came and interfered at first, he was annoyed but not angry. I get not wanting to paint yourself as an angry, drunk guy, but come on. This struck us all as phony.

D even drew a diagram of the bar and parking lot, showing the movements of the three people all the way through the end of the incident. I did my best to copy it down, but there were a lot of lines, so I didn't trust that I got it fully correctly.

The prosecution's cross-examination didn't ask crucial questions about whether he kicked B while she was down or whether he pushed her down a second time. I didn't feel like I learned very much from it.

And then the defense rested, and again I thought "that's it? Really?" Once again I was struck by the absence of evidence.

Day 3 - more instructions

Well, that brings us to today. The judge finally gave us a hefty packet that contained all the instructions for reaching a verdict. Because it is a criminal case, the verdict had to be unanimous. Many of the instructions were things we'd heard before about the presumption of innocence, "beyond reasonable doubt", burden of proof, which evidence to consider, and so on.

Other parts of the instructions finally filled us in on legal meanings. I can't actually find a clear matching definition for assault online, but the essence of it was when a person intentionally strikes or touches another person in a harmful or offensive way, a way that a reasonable person would be offended by. A crucial part is that it requires intent.

Following from that, assault in the second degree was narrowed to "intentionally assaults another and thereby recklessly inflicts substantial bodily harm". And then they had to provide a confusing definition for recklessness. And recklessness refers to the concept of "knowing" something, which gets its own even more confusing definition. You may be beginning to see why they had to focus the instructions so much for us.

Luckily we were able to distill the recklessness definition down to, "did he know when he pushed her that it could cause her to get hurt?" Most reasonable people would believe yes, the possibility exists, so to continue with the act counts as recklessness.

Assault in the fourth degree is simply committing any assault. Again, that requires intent. The domestic violence designation would automatically be attached to it if we found him guilty on this count because D and GF were adults in a dating relationship.

We received instructions to produce a verdict for each charge separately. If any part of the charge couldn't be proven, then the verdict for that charge should be not guilty. The jury had to be unanimous for the decision.

Day 3 - closing arguments

The prosecution gets to make closing arguments first. Then the defense. Then the prosecution gets to make a rebuttal.

The prosecution's closing statement mostly restated things from their testimony. It largely ignored D's testimony, pretended it didn't exist. At this point it didn't do enough to convince me of intent, which you'll see was the key issue of this entire case.

The defense's closing argument made the case entirely about alcohol consumption. Everyone had drunk too much and what happened was an accident. It didn't adequately address intentionality either.

Finally, alternate jurors were identified, chosen at random by lottery (literally using a bingo machine thingy). Good move, because otherwise those people would have tuned out immediately and been useless. I was not one of the two alternates.

Day 3 - deliberations

Keep in mind that although I say "day 3" here, this spanned over a weekend and one day with a break, so in total it was the sixth day since the trial began. All of us, including me, had plenty of time to mull over the testimonies in our heads in our free time. I certainly found my mind wandering over questions I had and things I wish I knew.

So it was a relief to finally be able to talk with others about it, and boy, everyone else had the same feeling, because it started turning chaotic very quickly. We elected a presiding juror, who attempted to steer the conversation and occasionally succeeded. The biggest problems were cross-talk, interruptions, and people talking over other people. A few of us tried to make sure people raised their hands and that everyone had a chance to speak. It was hard and took constant attention, because there was a lot of information, a lot of differing opinions, and a lot of points to discuss.

We took a quick initial vote and had about a 33/33/33 split of guilty, not guilty, and undecided. Before conversation spun too far out of control, a few of us tried to add some structure to the process. The judge had given us specific instructions about the charges being filed. The first charge involved the date and time of the incident (easily proven), the location (easily proven), the defendant and victim (easily proven), and elements of an "assault" charge, namely intentionality (difficult) and recklessness (nontrivial but doable).

The second charge

We started going in circles about intentionality almost immediately and ended up deferring to talk about the second charge first, hoping it was easier to figure out.

The second charge was simply assault: an intentional striking or touching that an ordinary person would find offensive or harmful. The circumstances of this, we eventually decided, were that GF was grabbing D's hand and could easily have slipped and fallen when he pushed her off (especially in her inebriated state). When grabbing someone else's hand who doesn't want you grabbing it, an ordinary person could easily expect their reaction of pushing it away or shrugging it off. There was enough doubt that the defendant intentionally struck her in an unexpected way, so we eventually agreed on not guilty.

That isn't to say we started there. We had one holdout who felt he was guilty at first and took quite some convincing. I'm not exactly sure what convinced them, seemingly a side chat with someone sitting next to them. In my opinion, that person came in with some biases towards male-against-female violence of any kind and saw intention where others saw unfortunate accident. When pressed for reasons, they seemed to think of "might have" and "could have" reasons that weren't supported by testimony. Anyway, I'm glad we were able to settle that one.

Back to the first charge

We turned our attention back to the first charge. There were two main parts: intentionality and recklessness. We were able to establish recklessness without too much trouble, provisional on intentionality of actually pushing: if you push someone, you have to know there is a possibility that they will get hurt, maybe injured. By continuing to push, you're disregarding that risk, and that constitutes recklessness. So finally we were just left with intentionality.

Somewhat ironically, D's drawing helped us here, coupled with other testimony. We had testimony from both GF and B that the defendant walked towards B in the parking lot as B was approaching them. That didn't strike us as a defensive act. From his diagram, D had to walk around the car door to make his approach, extra steps and actions that speak to intention.

D's claim was that he simply put out his hand to stop B, but it didn't make sense given his approach. Are you trying to create space using your hands, or are you walking towards them, which closes the space?

Both women testified that he stood over B after she was on the ground and that he pushed her down twice. While D didn't testify to a second push (or even the first push, really), it was easy to believe at this point that he was angry at the interference and did actually push twice.

We don't know what happened, probably never will. With a group of drunk adults over a year ago, it's probably impossible for any of them to produce the whole truth even if they wanted to. But all twelve of us felt there was a high likelihood that he pushed her intentionally, so we decided guilty of the first charge.

Throughout this, we were all frustrated at the lack of evidence we had access to. The testimonies were all by stakeholders in the crime: the perpetrator and victims. The police officer had no useful information, and the doctor only had medical opinions about the condition of her leg, not how it got that way. Where was the testimony from others at the bar? The guy in the truck who drove by? Other police officers? Where were police reports and statements taken at the night of the crime? We don't know why they weren't produced (by either the prosecution or the defense!). Maybe they couldn't be admitted because of some technicality or incorrect handling. Maybe the other people were unwilling to testify. We just don't know. It was frustrating to have such ambiguity to work with when the impact of the decision is so serious.

Wrapping up

We went back to the courtroom, and the clerk read the verdict. The defendant did not show much emotion. Some shaking of his head, frustration and disappointment. It was done fairly quickly, the judge came back to thank us for our service personally and ask us for feedback on the process as a whole, and dismissed us, allowing us to speak freely about the trial.

It's weighty to have passed a guilty verdict on someone else. This could alter the trajectory of his life significantly. I have to remember that all of us were convinced of this conclusion, people from wildly varying backgrounds. I also have to remember that the victims had some part in this process. They probably had to press charges in order for this case to be brought to trial. Their lives were also altered by what happened. Passing a not-guilty verdict could affect them too.

All in all, this was an interesting experience. I got lucky that the subject matter was relatively tame, nothing that would scar me mentally. I'm not necessarily eager to sit on another jury anytime soon, but probably wouldn't try hard to escape it either.