I had to serve on jury duty this week for the York County, PA court system. Ive never served on jury duty before, so I was really interested in finding out how it worked. I arrived on Monday morning and and we had about 45 minutes worth of instructions and watched a video on the process. I basically spent the rest of the day reading and chatting with other people.
Tuesday was pretty much the same case, until around 3:00 pm, when I was selected to be part of a jury pool. A group of names were called out, and about 24 of us (myself included) were marched down to a court room. Once inside, the judge explained the process and we were asked a series of questions to make sure that none of the jurors knew any of the parties (judge, lawyers, defendant) and didn’t have any reason to be biased (such as having a police officer for a spouse). The lawyers on each side we allowed to eliminate jurors they didn’t want to have on the case. We waited for 10-15 minutes while the two sides analyzed the list of jurors (they had listened to our responses to questions and also had detailed questionaires we had filled out before arriving), and submitted their list to the judge. I was one of the 12 chosen to be on the jury. Since it was about 4:00 at that point, court broke for the day and we were instructed to show up to the jury room assigned to the judge the next morning.
On Wednesday morning the trial started. The prosecution and defense read their opening arguments and then the prosecution called their witnesses. We were also shown some video footage and photographs. The defense attorney cross-examined some of the prosecution’s witnesses, but seemed to be going down a few odd tangents. The defendant testified and would have of had a reasonable story were it just a “one witness versus another” case, but the video footage clearly showed major contradictions against the defendant’s testimony. It was actually kind of odd hearing what the defendant said when he had just seen the same video the jury had. After the closing arguments finished, the judge instructed us to return to the jury room for deliberation. I asked about the procedure for reviewing evidence (mentioning the video tape) and the judge replied that he would check with the attorneys and then send it to us if allowed. We filed into the jury room and started discussing the case.
I was elected the jury foreman (I think largely based off my question to the judge), which seemed kind of novel, but also made me a bit nervous since I felt some additional weight on my shoulders that we reach a verdict fairly. I had read in Robert Cialdini’s excellent book Influence that it was important to not have anyone state their initial decision first, since once a public position is taken, people tend to be much more reluctant to change their views. We received the video that had been submitted into evidence by the tipstaff (the people responsible for handling the jury and other misc. items for the court), and watched it again, going back and re-watching several key parts. I went around the table and asked everyone if they had any questions about the evidence or the charge they wanted to discuss before we voted. We had about 30-40 minutes of discussion, but most were minor points and it seemed that everyone felt satisfied that they understoof the evidence and the nature of the charge. We then went around the table and asked everyone what felt the verdict should be. We had a unanimous decision that the defendant was guilty. We all had to sign a paper with our names and juror numbers that indicated the verdict. I then knocked on the door to inform the tipstaff that we were finished deliberation. After about 30 more minutes, the tipstaff informed us that court was going back into session and the jury was marched back in.
The judge asked if we had reached a verdict, and I said yes, I then got to say “We the jury find the defendant, XXXXX, guilty of the charge of retail theft”. It was kind of enjoyable saying that line, although I felt some sympathy for the defendant. There were a few more formalities, and then we were dismissed. Sentencing would happen at a later date, and be at the judge’s discretion. The jury is only involved in deciding the guilt of the suspect, not the punishment.
On Thursday morning I reported back to the main jury duty area and spent the time reading. Just before lunch one of the administrative staff came in and said that all the cases requiring jury duty for the week had been cleared and our service was up.
