Trial by jury

Here's the full story of the trial on which I served as a juror from September 11th through 23rd.

I was in the first panel of jurors (randomly?) picked to leave the assembly room on Wednesday the 11th, and then I was in the first group of jurors to be put in the jury box and interviewed. We were told that the defendant would be representing himself, and he was charged with two counts, possession of methamphetamine and being under the influence of meth.

Here are some of the potential jurors who ended up being excused in this case:

• A woman on the board of the Southern California ACLU, who said she would have major problems finding someone guilty on a simple drug possession charge because it's a victimless crime, and so on and so forth. Despite intense questioning by the judge ("Now, you understand that this isn't a referendum on our drug laws, right?"), she was excused.


• A woman who claimed that the fact that the defendant was accused of a crime pretty much meant he was guilty. Despite intense questioning by the judge ("Now, have you ever been accused of anything you didn't do?"), she was excused.


• A woman who, when asked how she feels about law enforcement, spun a tale of being harassed repeatedly by bounty hunters after a former roommate for whom she had posted bail skipped out on it. Despite intense questioning by the judge ("Now, you do realize bounty hunters and police officers aren't the same thing, right?"), she was excused.


• A man who wouldn't admit to having any prejudices, even after the judge talked about how he was prejudiced against grilled cheese sandwiches.

Here are some of the potential jurors who weren't excused in this case:

• A professor of Greek history at UCLA. The deputy district attorney's first question to him was, "Do you feel Socrates was treated unfairly?"


• A business attorney, who was himself shocked that he wasn't excused.


• A Southern Baptist pastor. The defendant's first question to him was "Do you believe we're in the end of days, when corruption runs rampant on Earth?" The deputy D.A. objected. The judge eventually distilled things down to the question, "Regardless of whether or not you believe we're in the end of days, do you believe you can be fair and impartial?"


• Me, and I was probably asked fewer questions than any other potential juror.

The case itself stemmed from the defendant being arrested on a street corner in March by a policeman from the special Metro division of the LAPD who was, that day, working in the Hollywood division. The cop allegedly found a bag of meth in a pocket in the defendant's vest, and a syringe in a pocket in the defendant's pants pocket. At the Hollywood police station, the defendant was interviewed by another officer to determine if he was under the influence, and then he claimed "I can't go" when asked to take a urine test.

The main witness for the people was the arresting officer. A main part of the reason the trial lasted longer than the judge though it would was that the defendant kept asking him long, drawn-out, complicated questions, and he kept asking for them to be broken down and/or repeated.

The syringe was the key piece of evidence. As we saw it, it was in an evidence tube with a piece of cork and with an orange plastic cap over the business end; also, the needle had broken and the broken piece had been put inside the barrel. There was a lot of contradictory testimony over when and by whom the needle was broken. It also turned out that it didn't have the defendant's blood on it, so we heard quite a bit of testimony about drug addicts sharing needles, and why people might keep old needles so they can turn them in for new ones at the Hollywood needle exchange, and so on and so forth.

We also heard from various friends and enemies of the defendant, all of whom are the type of people who hang around on street corners in Hollywood all the time. Some of them said the defendant never uses meth. Some of them said the defendant uses meth, sells meth, and practically runs a meth lab. One of them had said in a deposition that the defendant uses meth, but recanted that statement in court.

The defendant never testified, although some testimony crept into his questions. Meanwhile, the deputy D.A. rolled his eyes and sighed a lot during the defendant's questions.

Anyway, we finally heard closing arguments late on Thursday the 19th and started deliberating on Friday the 20th. There was a lot of contention in the jury room that day, much of it on the part of the business attorney, and we decided nothing. We did ask for, and get, some testimony read back to us by the court reporter, regarding whether the arresting officer had said he felt the baggie of meth from the outside of the defendant's vest before sticking his hand in the pocket.

When we returned on Monday, it turned out a few of the jurors had a change of heart over the weekend, and we decided on both verdicts just before lunchtime. A lot of inconsistencies in the arresting officer's testimony, as well as the strangeness involving the syringe, left us with reasonable doubt on the possession charge, so we found him not guilty there (although we definitely believed that he had been in possession of meth on many other occasions). However, we found him guilty on the under the influence charge.

So now I've been a juror in both a civil trial and a criminal trial in a period of about a year, and although the experience was interesting, I hope it's a long time before I get called again.