I just got home a couple of hours ago after having spent the last 2 days ensconced in the jury selection and trial for an offender charged with Assault - Bodily Injury - Family Violence. A class A misdemeanor here in Texas. The trial took place in the Caldwell County courthouse located in Lockhart, Texas, a city that claims to be the Bar-B-Que capital of the world... (and trust me, the BBQ here is FANTASTIC!).
About 10 days ago, I received my jury summons in the mail and I waited, rather anxiously, for yesterday, September 9th, to arrive. I've been summoned to jury duty almost a dozen times in my life and I've never been selected to serve as a juror, although I've always wanted to. You see, I've always been fascinated by the legal 'machine' process. A great deal of my interest was fueled by my very early childhood exposure to courtroom drama in the form of Earle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason character portrayed by the late Raymond Burr. For nearly 50 years I've watched nearly every episode of Perry Mason as well as all of the movies produced portraying the activities of the character. I've also seen countless other movies portraying the process of all that happens in the courtroom. Any time I get to watch through the keyhole of the courtroom, I'm enthralled by the process.
This time I was actually seeing it in real life. The first part of the process there were approximately 40 participants involved, known as the 'panel'. The name given to the potential pool of jurors that is created by the jury summons. Interestingly, according to statements made by Caldwell County Judge, Edward Jarrett, there were approximately 75 summons issued, but in reality only about 54 percent of those summoned where actually present for the process known as voir dire.
Voir Dire, according to http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2229 is defined as: (vwahr [with a near-silent "r"] deer) n. from French "to see to speak," the questioning of prospective jurors by a judge and attorneys in court. Voir dire is used to determine if any juror is biased and/or cannot deal with the issues fairly, or if there is cause not to allow a juror to serve (knowledge of the facts; acquaintanceship with parties, witnesses or attorneys; occupation which might lead to bias; prejudice against the death penalty; or previous experiences such as having been sued in a similar case). Actually one of the unspoken purposes of the voir dire is for the attorneys to get a feel for the personalities and likely views of the people on the jury panel. In some courts the judge asks most of the questions, while in others the lawyers are given substantial latitude and time to ask questions.
On the many other occasions I've been summoned for jury duty I've never made it through the Voir Dire process. But this time, I was actually asked several questions by the prosecution and the defense attorneys. Even so, I was actually surprised they actually chose me to serve. The Voir Dire process took about 5 hours and then we were dismissed for lunch. When we returned, the actual jury of 6 people was announced. For our case the jury consisted of 3 men and 3 women. A fair enough representation, I thought. We were instructed by Judge Jarrett to report to the jury room the following day (this morning) at 8:45 AM and the trial would commence shortly thereafter.
I arrived this morning at the courthouse at about 8:30 AM and rather than go up to the jury room immediately, I spent the remaining minutes checking my email and reviewing my Google Plus and Facebook streams for any content that might benefit from any of my interaction. Finding none, I proceeded up to the jury room at 8:40 AM. When I got there, I found all five of my fellow jurors already seated at the table in the jury room with the only chair remaining at the head of the table where the jury foreman's badge was waiting. It was conspicuously different from all of the other badges as it had a red stripe on the front of it instead of the blue stripe present on all of the other badges... I guess I had been 'volunteered' by my contemporaries.
We were ushered into the courtroom by the bailiff and sworn in as jurors by Judge Jarrett. The most difficult thing we had to deal with almost immediately is the courtroom itself. The acoustics in the room was terrible. This was due to the lack of sound-absorbing materials in the room. Every surface in the room was made of hard wood, plaster or glass and there wasn't anything to deaden the reverberation effects at all. There wasn't any kind of public address system in use in the room as, that would have only made the effects much worse.
The first witness called was the victim, a young woman of about 23 years of age and very soft-spoken. She had to be reminded far too many times to speak up so she could be heard by the jury. She was alleging the defendant slapped her across the face and had caused her physical pain as a result of the contact. She described in a pretty fair amount of detail that her boyfriend and father of her child, had been having sexual intercourse and during the act he had become 'upset' because she had 'moved differently', apparently, they had not been having sex very regularly as they had not been living together.
In his anger, he decided to examine her cell phone and as he was going to get it, a physical altercation ensued where he pushed her down on the bed and 'frog-punched' her in the rear of the left thigh. When she attempted to get up out of the bed, he then allegedly slapped her across the face. She stated in her testimony that the frog punch really didn't seem to hurt her at all, but the slap across the face was like an explosion of pain. He got her telephone and started looking through the text messages and became even more incensed when he found messages from her employer (who was referred to as 'Snuggles') in which she had a conversation with him regarding a puppy she had recently obtained.
The defendant then accused her of having a sexual affair with her employer. He threw the phone across the room and she stormed out and made it outside and ran several blocks down the street. This event happened in November 2012 and here we are 10 months later. Later on, during other testimony by the police officer who responded to the call, we saw her dressed in gym shorts and a thin top, not at all practical in terms of the weather for that time of year. She was also barefoot, clearly cold and very uncomfortable.
One of the very interesting aspects of her testimony was revealed by the prosecutor that the victim had twice executed a written affidavit, once at the Lockhart PD and once at the Caldwell County DA's office requesting the charges be dropped and not to prosecute the defendant. This occurred after the defendant had been in jail for more than a month. It was further revealed by the prosecutor that the victim had to be issued a subpoena in order to appear to testify. She was not a willing participant in the trial and was clearly uncomfortable testifying. She apparently still had feelings for the defendant and didn't want to cause him any more distress as a result of the arrest. She said that when she initially called the police, she had no idea they would arrest him. She simply wanted the police to go with her to obtain her belongings and retrieve her infant son and go home to her own place.
The prosecution also presented several photographs taken by police officers that depicted the areas of the victim's person that were allegedly struck and injured. Unfortunately, you really couldn't tell much from the photos, even though they were actually quite good. There was no noticeable evidence of any red marks or indication that the victim had been slapped. However, I could tell the left side of her face was swollen, consistent with an impact of an open hand. She was clearly (to me) slapped. Other members of the jury weren't as sure of the photographic evidence as I was.
It was further revealed that she went to visit the defendant every week at the county jail for more than 6 months and wrote him letters every single day. The letters weren't specifically revealed, but they were referred to as having been written with content of a highly erotic nature and both the prosecution and the defense attorneys attempted to use the lascivious nature of the content of the letters to their respective ends.
Naturally, the defense attorney did what she could to discredit the credibility of the victim but she really didn't make much of an impact upon the members of the jury.
After the victim finished testifying, we took a brief recess for about 30 minutes and when we came back into the courtroom, the officer from Lockhart PD was called to the stand to testify. He spent a bit of time relating his experience on the force and his ability to determine whether or not a person was lying. At the time of the incident he had only been on the police force approximately 10 months. He also testified that domestic disputes were a fairly large percentage of the calls he rolled on. He explained the procedural policies of the department with respect to assault type calls and stated he had restrained the alleged defendant in handcuffs for the safety of himself and his fellow officer, the sergeant who accompanied him on the call. He then produced a DVD with dashcam video depicting his interaction with the victim immediately after the alleged incident and her emotional distress and relating of her side of the incident were documented. This dashcam video was actually the linchpin of the verdict we ultimately rendered. Without the dashcam video it would have been a far more 'interesting' afternoon.
The defense didn't put on any sort of a case. They closed their case immediately after the prosecution closed theirs. We were then allowed to go to lunch.
After lunch, we returned to the courtroom and we were given the charges and the juror instructions by Judge Jarrett. He carefully explained our duties as jurors and how we were to conduct ourselves in the deliberations. We immediately retired to the jury room to being our duties.
Initially, we formally 'elected' me as the foreman of the jury. It was clear the others really didn't want the responsibility of presiding over the others. I didn't mind at all. We took an initial vote and there were 2 for a guilty verdict and 4 for a not-guilty verdict as they had doubts as to the reasons the defendant allegedly struck the victim. We had to come to a consensus that no matter what the reason, striking another person was not acceptable in our society and that if the event actually happened, it would require a verdict of guilty under the law.
We discussed this issue for nearly a half hour, trying to come to grips with the consequences of our verdict on the defendant, the victim and their child. The defendant had already spent nearly 10 months in jail because of a slap across the face. It seemed to many of us, including me, that 10 months for a face slap was a pretty severe price to pay. Unfortunately, we would not be involved in the sentencing of the defendant if a guilty verdict was returned. He had elected to be sentenced by the judge.
Ultimately, we reviewed all of the photographic evidence and then the dashcam video from the patrol car and came to the conclusion, beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant had actually slapped her across the face, thereby committing an offense of assault. We took another vote and it was unanimous... Guilty.
I struggled with my decision to find him guilty because, in my experience, I have been angry in my life, many times... I could certainly understand how a situation between two people could get completely out of hand to the point of one slapping the other across the face. All of us struggled with the fact that it was 'only a face slap' and that the prosecution seemed to be overly zealous in terms of prosecuting the case, especially since there really wasn't any kind of serious injury or lasting consequences. There were no medical personnel involved, no hospitalization, nothing even remotely like that. It was a simple face slap. However, as the law is written, we were bound to return a guilty verdict. It was a message we were compelled to deliver to the defendant to let him know that kind of behavior was not acceptable in our society. According to the prosecutor we talked with, after the verdict was rendered and presented to the court, the next time he is charged with Assault - Bodily Injury - Family Violence, it will be a felony charge which will carry a much stiffer sentence.
She also told us she would recommend to the judge (because the defendant had other legal troubles that were pending) that he be sentenced to time served... 300 days thus far. All in all, I found the experience of being a juror on the case to be extremely interesting. I only hope the defendant, who apparently has a much longer criminal history, learns something from the experience as well. I'll be praying for him for quite a long time.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post and the next time you get a jury summons, don't try to get out of jury service. You would want someone to be willing to serve on a jury of your peers should the need arise.
Ben
God bless,
