Michael McDaniel’s Dawning Awareness

I got selected to a jury panel yesterday. Fifty jurors were pulled for a 13-person jury; I was #28. The jury is made up of the 13 lowest-numbered jurors who aren’t excused or challenged. You can be excused for hardship (being on the jury imposes an undue burden) or via a challenge from the prosecution or defense lawyers (they get 7 challenges each, and can dismiss a juror for no reason). “Challenge” sounds so adversarial, but that’s the term they use.

After the judge told us what was going to happen, she explained the likely trial schedule and dismissed people who had conflicts which would cost them significantly. Next, she asked us questions to ferret out biases for or against the legal system itself (example: “have you had a bad experience with law enforcement officers that might influence your interpretation of police testimony?”). After about 20 such questions, she turned things over to the lawyers for voir dire.

In turn, each side had two 15 minute periods to talk to the jury and ask questions to help their side identify who would be good jurors for them. This was a domestic violence case, so there were questions like “why might a victim lie on the stand?” and “if you had to deliberate right now, what would your verdict HAVE to be?” As they asked questions, they’d watch for general reaction (heads nodding, etc) and sometimes would ask an individual juror to comment. I was never asked a question directly, and didn’t volunteer an answer to any questions as I’d just have been duplicating other jurors.

Then, the lawyers began to dismiss jurors from the box. As they left, those of us sitting in the gallery would fill in the box as our numbers were called. When my number was called, I was dismissed by the prosecutor, using her 6th challenge.

I’ve been thinking about why I was dismissed. The prosecutor had only two things to go on to dismiss me. The first was my demeanor in the court. Maybe I didn’t nod my head enough. Maybe I didn’t seem severe enough. Hard to know. The second thing the prosecutor had was my biography, a sheet of paper listing my name, city, age, how long I’ve lived in King County, the city and state of my birth, the number and ages of my children, my occupation, and my experience as a juror (none), a felon (none), and a litigant (none). Oh, and my years of education (17). I should think all of that would make me a good juror for the prosecution, but maybe what she was really looking for was swayability, and she decided I wasn’t easily convinced.

I suppose that, as with the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie-roll pop, the world will never know.