penfield | Trials and Tribulations: Part Two

Click here for Part One.

On the first day after orientation, I was required to arrive at the courthouse at 9:50 a.m. and report to the Jury Assembly Room as a "Venire Juror" (with Venire meaning "potential" and Juror meaning "God").

That morning, I wondered what the dress code was. I relished the possibility of ditching my work-a-day shirt-and-tie for a more casual ensemble. But I didn't want to look too casual, lest the court suspect that I do not take my duties seriously, and besides, the courtrooms were a bit drafty for my usual weekend outfit of a grass skirt and golf poncho. Ultimately I decided on a non-confrontational button-down shirt and a pair of brown slacks that said "innocent until proven sexy."

With my bag once again full of various books, puzzles and diversions, I arrived at the courthouse pulled up a chair in the assembly room next to a well-tailored businessman reading the Washington Times. (Like everyone else I see reading the Washington Times, I immediately assumed he was either a staunch conservative Republican or a mentally disadvantaged person who had been discreetly dressed by a team of nurses.)

There were fewer people in the room than there had been the day before, since only 6 of the twelve sections had been called that day, though there was no shortage of characters occupying seats. At the next table over was a twenty-something woman talking so excitedly on her cell phone that she was perpetually on the verge of falling out of her seat. Across from her was an ancient man who looked as if he had been sun-dried and pelted with darts. His face was oddly adorned with band-aids, from his right temple to his left earlobe. Scanning the room, I counted at least seven comb-overs, including one so majestic that it appeared to have been conjured by Poseidon.

While I started my crossword puzzle (Air France Stopover: "ORLY"?), a clerks' assistant passed out to each person a small envelope stuffed with three very crisp $10 bills. These bills were so exceptionally crisp that I was a little afraid to fold them. In an emergency, they could conceivably have been used to threaten hostile individuals with paper cuts.

Shortly thereafter, an actual clerk, a roly-poly dark-haired man told us that there were two trials set for the day, and asked us to gather our things and reconvene in Courtroom A. We did the whole thing where we stood up as the judge came in ("Just like Night Court!" I thought to myself) and at the front of the courtroom we saw two mildly sweaty attorneys and one shifty defendant.

The clerk then called out 20 names, carefully spelling out each last name. (Maybe they were doing this to ensure the total accuracy of court records. But my sneaking suspicion is that they wanted to identify all the nationalities in the jury pool without having to smell them for whiskey/marinara sauce/plastique/etc.) As a person's name was called, he or she was led to a seat in the jury box or in the frontmost pew, and then collectively they were sworn to tell the God's-honest truth.

I was not among the 20 people called. I was kind of happy about this, because I have to tell you, the defendant looked totally guilty. Now, If I was called, I think I could have given him a fair trial. But judging by his body language, they might as well have had him in leg irons and one of those Hannibal Lecter masks.

The judge, a dark and doughy man, announced the charges against the defendant -- Grand Theft Auto -- and signaled the beginning of the voir dire process. During the voir dire process, the attorneys ask questions to find out who in the jury is out for blood (or alternatively, who does not want any blood whatsoever).

Doing his part to make the jury more favorable to his client, the defense attorney innocently asked how many people had ever personally been the victim of larceny or grand larceny. To his obvious horror, 13 people raised their hands. He then asked of the others if they had a close friend or relative who had been the victim of larceny or grand larceny, and the other seven people raised their hand. Band-Aid man raised his hand both times; he may simply have needed to go to the bathroom.

Also of interest, though barely germaine to the case, was when the defense attorney referred to a female juror as "sir." She was visibly impudent about this misstep. Now, to be fair, her name was Yvonne, which could have easily been mistaken for Javon or Ivan or Siobhan. And she did sort of look like Dave Barry. But I thought it was amusing that the defense attorney was going to have to use one of his strikes to reject her, because after that she looked like she wanted to slice him open with one of her $10 bills.

The jury thus selected, two pear-shaped bailiffs escorted the rest of us to Courtroom D for the second trial. This judge, a wee, rigid-looking man with wire-framed spectacles and a yellow bow tie drooping over the collar of his robe, was already seated at the bench. His throne so dwarfed him that if there had been a cake he would have looked like he was at his first birthday party.

The court clerk, an inappropriately chipper woman this time, called another 20 jurors to the front of the court and this time I heard my name among them. I was No. 4, seated between No. 3, an avuncular African-American man (the only black person in the entire room), and No. 5, a slender old man in a suit and sweater vest with shock-white hair and unimpeachable posture. We were sworn in, and I took mental note that it was the first time I had ever said "I do" in a legally binding situation.

Across the room at the defendant's table sat a tiny Hispanic man, hunched over in his chair as if he had a heavy quilt draped across his back. He was wearing a pair of headphones, and I thought to myself, "Wow. He must feel pretty relaxed and confident if he's on trial and he's listening to his iPod."

At this point the judge announced the charges in the case. "The defendant is charged..."

And he paused there for at least five seconds. It was a much longer pause than the grand theft auto pause. With every millisecond of that pause, I imagined the charges getting worse and worse. Jaywalking? Fraud? Larceny? Assault? Manslaughter? Murder? But nobody ever really commits murder, do they? And anyway, what could that little guy over there, approximately the size of my 12-year old cousin, possibly have done?

"...with raping and sodomizing his 14-year old stepdaughter. He is charged with four counts of each, occurring over a period of one month."

I remember trying to be still and stone-faced, but inside I was slithering like an earthworm. I was filled with two strong and divergent thoughts: I do not want the responsibility of passing judgment and penalty on such a heinous crime. And: I want to know how this trial will work; I want to know what happened, and what will happen, in this case. To a lesser extent, I also thought: I want to throw up.

Proceeding to the voir dire Both attorneys gingerly probed the potential jurists for any particular sensitivities to the crime and the subject matter, the use of forensic and DNA evidence, and the potential for emotionally charged testimony. No one indicated any discomfort, although the gentleman seated directly in front of me pointed out that the defense attorney had represented his ex-wife in their divorce. He was immediately excused, without any audible curse words.

Without much fuss or confrontation -- none of us were questioned individually -- the jury was selected and I was among the chosen, one of ten men and two women (including the avuncular black gentleman; the well-postured man was replaced by King Comb-over). Everyone else was excused, to a soft chorus of deep breaths. The clerk read the formal charges aloud, and the trial began with opening statements.

The prosecutor for the Commonwealth, a mild-mannered Mr. Rogers clone, spoke calmly but intently about the abuse that had allegedly begun way back when the victim was 11 years old and extended to 2002 when she actually bore a son by the defendant. Mr. Rogers talked about threats of violence, forced miscarriages, and the defendant's supposed attempted flight from prosecution.

The defense attorney, a blustery, saggy old man in a rumpled gray suit, put forth the position that the sex was entirely consensual.

The defense attorney also made a point to note the obvious fact that he had the flu, though to his credit he did not once sniffle or throw up. Most members of the jury would have been nervous about adhering to such a standard. (He also explained the headphones -- the defendant was wearing them because he did not speak English and was receiving the Spanish translation of all the Court's dialogue. This explained the lack of rhythmic head-bobbing, but still left me wondering how he could remain so emotionless and passive during every moment of the court proceedings. He seemed to be expressing his anxiety solely through blinking.)

Moving swiftly, the prosecution began its case with a series of witnesses. I will not go in to detail about the testimony of the girl, or her mother, or the parade of cops and forensic scientists, except to say that it was at times revolting. I will note, though, that the Commonwealth's case was not air-tight. I wanted more evidence; I wanted my decision to be easy and reflexive and obvious, and the prosecution's case did not bring me all the way there.

But as unsatisfying as the prosecution's case was, the defense's case was preposterous. Beginning the following day, it consisted entirely of Senor Headphones and his ludicrous story about a 14-year old girl coming on to him in a consumer electronics store.

And therefore, the jury's decision ultimately came down to this: whose story was the truth?

By lunchtime on the second day of the trial, both the prosecution and defense rested their cases and the judge provided us with explicit jury instructions. We recessed to the jury room and began our deliberations. Initially, there was a bit of awkwardness, since this was really the first time we were even permitted to talk to each other.

Technically, we were only forbidden from discussing the case with each other while the case was in progress. I should have felt free to tell King Combover that his heavy mouth-breathing sounded like an obscene caller in an iron lung. But I think everyone was afraid that they would accidentally let something slip. For example:

JUROR NO. 2: Ugh, this coffee is terrible.

JUROR NO. 7: Not as terrible than what the defendant did to that poor girl.

JUROR NO. 9: And not nearly as terrible as these doughnuts.

Our first order of business was choosing the foreperson for the jury. Our rigorous process for choosing our foreperson consisted primarily of identifying the person sitting at the end of the table. I wanted to choose the guy who was a former circuit court clerk in Ohio, but he was in the bathroom during the voice vote. I was never in the running, although I was the person designated to read each of the charges aloud, doing my level best to say the words "penis" and "vagina" with a total lack of inflection.

Like I said, the jury's decision ultimately came down to whose version was believable: the victim's or the defendant's? It took us only 45 minutes to find the defendant guilty on all all four counts of sodomy and all four counts of rape, and a good 15 minutes of that time was spent waiting while Madam Foreperson signed all the relevant documents. We passed the time reading aloud the transcript from the defendant's police interrogation, which was so stilted it made Miami Vice sound like Masterpiece Theatre.

As we filed back into the courtroom, I tried to avoid eye contact with everybody, even the impossibly chipper court clerk who was wearing knee-high leather boots and a skirt this time. But I did sneak a peek at the defense attorney as I first breached the jury box and I swear I heard him whisper to his client, "That's not good."

One by one, Madam Foreperson read the jury's findings, and with each one the defense attorney's head sunk deeper into his palms. We were very obviously ruining his day (somehow I wasn't quite as concerned with the defendant himself), and we weren't even finished yet. The defendant having been found guilty, the jury was then given the responsibility of determining his jail sentence. Each of the eight charges carried a highly flexible sentence of five-years-to-life in prison, and oh-by-the-way, in Virginia, parole no longer exists.

Back in the jury deliberation room, it took about four seconds for us to decide on a life sentence for each rape count. The sodomy charge took longer to decide -- did we want it to carry the same weight as the rape charge? Was it less damaging? Was it more demeaning? Were we being too emotional? Were we being too casual? At this point I took the opportunity and initiative to canvas the jury and tabulate the results on the white board, which not only helped move things along but also helped make my experience feel a little more tangible. It would have been even cooler if I hadn't kept screwing up the math.

After another 45 minutes, we all finally agreed to nail the fucker: life sentences on all eight counts. It was unclear to me whether the sentences would be served consecutively or concurrently, but given the presumed treatment an offender of his ilk would receive in prison, I was at any rate doubtful that he would even make it ten years before dying from mysterious rectal hemorrhaging.

The judge thanked us for our service and banged his gavel, court adjourned. As I left the jury box and strode out of the courtroom -- past the attorneys, and the defendant, and the victim crying in the arms of her mother -- I wanted to feel proud and righteous, as if I was a fingertip of the gods, an instrument of justice. But my pride was outweighed by the notion that I was merely a bit player in a grand and sordid story, a small cog in an antique but functional nightmare machine.

I imagine it is what extras felt like on the set of Gigli.

Even after the conclusion of that case, I still had a week of jury eligibility remaining. I was looking forward to the prospect of another trial, not just for the adventure and the $30 and the 10 a.m.-to-3 p.m. workdays, but also to wash the foul taste of that trial out of my mouth. Anticlimactic as it would surely be, I was raring for something vaguely comical like mail fraud or a crack bust or a good old restraining order violation.

Sadly, I was not called again. Isn't that always how it goes? They call you, you answer the call, you feel like you do a good job and make a good impression, you start to feel good about yourself, they say they're going to call you again, and you're left waiting by the phone.

Hmph. Justice. What a bitch.