Seat 6D

The building to the right is where I’ve been spending my week on jury duty. While I can’t talk about the case I am currently assigned to, I can make some observations about the jury process and facilities as well as the case I am no longer assigned to.

As a juror, when I arrived Monday morning, I was told to report to the Jury Assembly Room. The Jury Assembly room is in the sub-basement of the Hennepin County Government Center. The room, is quite large, and sub-divided into a TV room, the general room, and a “business center” which consists of individual workstations with power. The chairs are comfortable, and overall their process is good.

On the first day of a new week, jurors are told to report in at 8:15AM. Attendance is taken at that time. At 8:15, the Jury Commissioner came out and explained the basic process. Anyone who had not answered the questions that came with the summons, either online or by mail, needed to report to the jury office as they would get flagged anyway as their summons was scanned. Anyone who had forgotten their summons also needed to report to the jury office. The rest of us lined up and walked thru the line, having our summons bar code scanned (shades of airplane boarding lines…I wonder if there is a frequent juror club I can join).

Following that process, we watched a video shown to all Minnesota jurors introducing the process. That was followed by orientation. All in all, that took us until about 10AM. Throughout the jury room, there are monitors reminding you to not use the chairs as footstools, to remember to recycle, and most important, how many pending cases remain that day. That becomes the number to focus on, because when it hits zero, you are released for the day. On Monday, there were 72 criminal cases and 9 civil cases pending.

Jurors awaiting assignment are given an hour for lunch from 12-1PM. They can also sign out in 5 minute increments to go smoke, grab a coffee, etc. if no jury pool is about to be selected. If you want, you can continually sign out for 5 minute breaks until the sign goes up that they are pulling a pool. For me, the first alert came at 10:15AM. At that time, they pulled a pool of 55 jurors for a criminal trial. My name wasn’t selected for that group.

At 10:30, they announced that the second pool was being selected. This consisted of 40 jurors for a criminal trial. My name was pulled for that pool. If selected, you go through security in the jury room (If you’ve flown, you know the procedure: empty your pockets, take off your jacket. The nice thing is that you only remove your shoes if they are high heels, and you do not need to remove your laptop from it’s case). Needless to say, from my traveling, I passed security with no incident. At that time, you take a clipboard (used for filling out jury questionaires in many criminal cases), and stand in line in front of the freight elevator in groups of 18 to go up to the courtroom.

We went up to the proper floor where we proceeded to wait in the hall (note: this is a recurring theme) until the judge was ready for us. As this was our first time for this trial, the judges judicial clerk did some administrivia. This consisted of gathering our names and numbers in case she had to reach us not to come in on any particular day, and to give us her card in case we had to reach her. She also told us that while food was prohibited, the judge did allow drinks and coffee into the courtroom (Thank you judge! I love you!). This rule varies from judge to judge.

After about 25 minutes in the hall, we were moved into the courtroom to be seated behind the rail. The judge was in the courtroom and seated as we came in. As there were more of us than seats available, the judge announced that we would quickly be seated in the jury box so people would not need to stand. The clerk administered the affirmation, and then called specific jurors to take their place in the jury box according to preassigned seats. This is done so that the judge, clerk and both attorneys have a list of names assigned to the seats and in general speeds the process. The rest of us remained seated in the back of the room. We were the alternates to draw from in case jurors were dismissed. The final result would be 14 jurors (12 jurors and 2 alternates) The reason for the large pool I assume was due to the nature of the case, and probability of releasing jurors.

Once we had the prospective jurors seated in the jury box, the judge gave us charges of the case. For this trial, the charges were Attemted 1st degree murder and 2nd degree assult. If it didn’t seem real before then, I can assure you, hearing those charges is a good alternative to caffine for waking up in the morning. The judge then went on to explain the basics of our roles, the definition of “presumed innocent” and “reasonable doubt”. Then the questions began.

The first round of questions comes from the judge. There are basic “get to know you questions” designed to first put the jurors at ease, and second to give the judge and both attorneys a feel for the juror. In this case, the preliminary questions consisted of questions along the line of the following:

• What is your occupation?
• How long have you been employed?
• Are you married or do you have a signifcant other? (If so, then questions regarding that person are also raised).
• Do you have any children? (If so, then questions regarding children are also raised).
• Do you know anyone involved in law enforcement, or any attorneys involved in criminal work (i.e. prosecutors or defense attorneys). (If so, that results in further questions as to your relationship to them, and if that will play any role in your ability to be impartial in this case).
• Have you or anyone you know ever been accused of a crime? (If so, appropriate followup questions related to your answer)
• Have you or anyone you know ever be the victim of a crime? (If so, appropriate followup questions related to your answer)

Based on individual people, the judge may also ask addition questions related to financial hardships, or other issues. The goal of this process, known as voir dire is to determine if you are able to be impartial in your judging of this case. Only one person was dismissed by the judge at this point.

By now we have reached the end of Monday, and questions by the attorneys’ is scheduled to resume Tuesday morning. During this time, we were given a 90 minute lunch break as well as an additional 15 minute break, which allowed us to stretch our legs, and use the rest room, but did not provide enough time to go thru security to get coffee. Following each break we met back in the hallway outside the courtroom and waited for the judicial clerk to bring us back into the courtroom. This is to insure that the jury is not exposed to anything related to this case (or other cases) which we should not hear. All in all though I spent over an hour in that hallway on Monday.

I’ll continue with Tuesday on the next post. (Yes, this is a blog cliffhanger).